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Nonprofit Hub Radio
Whether starting a nonprofit or taking an existing cause to the next level, The Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast is about breaking down how nonprofits can grow. Each episode features an interview with a sector star with insight, stories, or ideas that can take your nonprofit from good to excellence. Join host Meghan Speer every week to make your good go further!
Nonprofit Hub Radio
Redefining Nonprofit Leadership: Empathy, Overhead Investment, and Sustainable Culture Transformation
Ever wondered how a theater major transitions into a powerhouse in nonprofit management? Join me, Meghan Speer, as I chat with Abigayle Tobia, a seasoned nonprofit consultant, who has faced the complex world of nonprofit fundraising and leadership with resilience and creativity. From the pressures of unpredictable funding to the emotional toll on professionals, our conversation uncovers the gritty realities and profound rewards of nonprofit work. We delve into the shifts in leadership post-COVID-19 and the need for empathetic leadership and competitive salaries to keep nonprofit teams thriving and committed. Abigayle and I challenge outdated perceptions and advocate for strategic investment in organizational infrastructure, drawing parallels with successful practices in the for-profit world.
Abigayle Tobia is a nonprofit leader and fundraising strategist with over 20 years of experience securing major gifts and driving mission impact. She specializes in aligning donor visions with organizational needs, leading high-performing teams, and implementing innovative fundraising strategies.
Get free nonprofit professional development resources, connections to cause work peers, and more at https://nonprofithub.org
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Speaker 2:Welcome back to another episode of the Nonprofit Hub podcast. I'm your host, megan Spear, excited to dive into a conversation today with Abigail Tobia, who is a nonprofit consultant, has years and decades of this not decades, that sounds, I mean, it's probably fair to say, but I don't want to. I don't want to age you in the process, but just so much wisdom and so much experience in the nonprofit space, so really excited to have you joining us today. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. I appreciate the invitation, Megan.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. To that end, paint a picture for us, give me a little bit of insight and give the audience a little bit of insight into kind of who you are and your journey in the nonprofit space.
Speaker 3:Sure. So I started as an undergraduate in social work and focused on youth development and then started looking at grad school and I thought my career path would be to be an executive director. That's what I thought was out there. I actually started college as a theater major and really enjoyed kind of the stage management perspective and I got assigned to a show of the Tempest and I went to my advisor and I said I can't do this rehearsal schedule. I do Girl Scouts for a troop that's rural and underserved and I have to use my lunch hour to go and be their troop leader. And she very calmly looked at me. She goes if your volunteer work is interfering with your ability to be in the theater, perhaps you need a new major. And so that was my. I have a theater minor only because I made it through like two semesters before they said your volunteer work, your community work, is interfering with your education. So I decided a major that was more compatible with my desire to be engaged in the community. I mean, that's a true nonprofit heart right there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I went to the social work department and thankfully they welcomed me there, the social work department and thankfully they welcomed me there. And so after my undergraduate I was looking at grad schools and I found a really great nonprofit management program through Regis University and I'm going through and I'm thinking that I'm taking classes and I'm thinking I'm going to be an executive director and I realized that everyone needs a fundraiser and the fundraising didn't intimidate me. So my capstone was on planned giving. I studied fundraising and that's been my career path in nonprofits. I make a really good team member at that top level and being able to connect resources and programs and clinical and all the different parts of a nonprofit with the passions of our donors yeah.
Speaker 2:I love that that well. I am excited because definitely that experience is going to come into play in our conversation today. As we have been talking about this, as we're recording, it has been a chaos 24 hours, 48 hours, chaos, right. All sorts of questions about federal funding and federal grants and all of the things.
Speaker 2:So much happening, and there is an extent to which that impacts somebody's mental health, right, because trying to keep up with all of it and figure out how it impacts the nonprofits we serve is demanding and overwhelming, and so there is a mental health component to that overwhelming, and so there is a mental health component to that. But it is not the only challenge that fundraisers are seeing in their nonprofits right now. Trying to figure out where the grants are coming from and if that's going to happen is its own pressure, but there are plenty of other pressures, and so that's what we kind of want to dig into today, hopefully as an encouragement to our fundraisers out there. I'm excited for this. So, yeah, let's start there. Tell me where you the things that you've kind of been thinking about in this space when it comes to some of the burnout and mental health statistics that we're seeing in the nonprofit sector.
Speaker 3:Right. So fundraising has always been challenging. Your day-to-day is always different. There have been mornings.
Speaker 3:I've put my hiking boots in the morning to go visit a camp and go on a hike with a donor to show them a piece of property that needs to be revised, and that ended the evening in a cocktail dress with wine and cheese, talking to someone else about the impact of the program. That's just the nature of the work we do and it's one of the reasons why so many of us love it. You can truly have a week where everything changes and everything's different. But what has been coming out especially here in the Western Pennsylvania market, I think, more recently is the challenges to culture within nonprofit employment, and it's heartbreaking when colleagues call me and say I just I have resigned, I'm taking a sabbatical, I don't have any other place to go, but I knew I couldn't stay there. I only lasted six, eight weeks, three months a year.
Speaker 3:There was some great research about the challenges and attracting and hiring nonprofit talent fundraising talent and yet the flip side wasn't heard right. If you want to attract and retain fundraising talent, offering salaries and healthy work environments are key to that. Yeah, I truly think part of it was our results from COVID. We had a group of a whole generation of nonprofit leaders that held on during COVID. Maybe they delayed retirement, Maybe they learned a lot about themselves and their leadership skills. They cared about the mental health of their employees. They emphasized with the challenges of fundraising and homeschooling. Suddenly, or whatever, and then we had a large turnover in those organization leaders. Those leaders were ready to retire. They were perhaps exhausted. They had led organizations through very difficult times and the new generation of executive directors and CEOs are really struggling to understand those leadership skills to be able to provide healthy work environments for all their employees.
Speaker 3:I had a friend who was doing a strategic planning for an organization here in town and he called me and says what do you know about them? What's your impression? And listened and I said the word on the street is that CEO is difficult to work for and that's one of the reasons why they're having trouble retaining staff, especially fundraising staff. Yeah, the board knew it. The board had funders on it.
Speaker 3:They all knew that this particular organization was struggling to maintain fundraising operations because they weren't providing a healthy work environment. So where do we start holding our CEOs accountable? When do the funders start saying, if we're giving you a grant of $200,000 for gender equity, then one of the stipulations is going to be that you do a gender equity compensation survey and we'll pay for it, and then we're going to make sure that you model the same behavior that we're asking the rest of the community to follow. Yeah, and the nonprofit professionals are just sitting here waiting for our large funders to say you're not an efficient organization because you're burning through staff so fast. And this is a real issue and it's just the heartbreaking moment right now for fundraising professionals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So talk to me a little bit about that. Let's dig deeper into that one piece of it. I think sometimes we do see that it's easy to have excuses, right, well, we're just a non-profit, we're small, we have a small team, you know every. There's so many excuses that we can hide behind, maybe for not embracing some of those initiatives to build a healthier culture, to make sure that compensation is in line or that benefits are in line. In an ideal world it would come from the CEO, right, the executive director, or maybe from the board. But where are some of those pieces in your like? Where does it start? Is it board driven? Is it executive director driven? Where's the disconnect starting from what we preach as a nonprofit to what we actually do for our people?
Speaker 3:I think that the one of the disconnects is about a growth mindset. So I'm a better fundraiser today than I was three years ago and I would hope that after 25 years of fundraising I haven't reached my peak. I hope that in three years I'm even better. And yet boards sometimes hire CEOs expecting them to have all the answers and all the skills and all the tools that they need, and they don't invest in executive coaching, they don't invest in HR supports. They decide that the CEO should be the chief HR, the chief finance, the chief fundraiser, all sorts of things, and not actually give them the tools to do that. So again, when we go back to our funders or we go back to our board of directors and say, truly, $300 a year for your executive director's professional development is not enough. If you truly want to retain an executive director or a CEO and, let's be honest, the title executive director is really just a demotion that tries to save salary If you are the chief person who can sign legal documents for a nonprofit, your title should be CEO.
Speaker 3:We don't call for-profit presidents or leaders of a for-profit company an executive director. We only do it to nonprofits to help keep salaries low, to try to limit what we say is that person's responsibility. They are the chief executive officer and they should be supported and compensated accordingly. And so if we look at a for-profit company and say the CEO doesn't come in with all the answers, they come in with a lot of them.
Speaker 3:But we're going to invest in professional development, we're going to get them in a peer support group of other CEOs, we're going to get them executive coaching, we're going to make sure they have a good CFO so that they're not the only one looking at the books trying to make sure things are on track. We're going to make sure that at a certain level, there really is either outsourced HR leadership or internal strong HR leadership, and we're just not seeing organizations and board of directors commit to that level of growth within their nonprofits. Organizations and board of directors commit to that level of growth within their nonprofits and then they struggle saying, well, how do we get capacity building grants? Or how do we convince the donors that we're ready to grow or to invest more in us? You're not investing in yourself. It's hard to take you seriously when you're cutting all of these corners.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's interesting. So, in a problem solving mentality, if you are somebody and I want to break this down from like multiple seats, right, so if you are somebody who is a fundraising professional, what are the steps that you can take to encourage change in that direction? And even from the board perspective because we have folks listening to the podcast who are all three of those things, right, yeah. And so I'd love to be able to kind of break down understanding that if you're the fundraiser, you may not have all of the power to affect that change, and kind of leading from the back, if you will, but what are some steps that each of those groups could take to help drive change within their organization and make it healthier in that regard?
Speaker 3:And I think that's one of the beautiful things about being a fundraiser and a nonprofit leader. From a fundraising perspective, it's like what is that puzzle box, that top of dollars and we can't lower those salaries because we're not going to be able to get the quality of staff that we need and then really talking to the donors about the real cost of a program that includes a livable salary and benefits and professional development all included in that, all included in that. So board members need to know that whatever salary they set for their CEO, there needs to be another $10,000 to $15,000 budgeted for professional development. And then there needs to be the prioritization of the professionalism of all the other executive level spots. One thing we're seeing right now is organizations going for a director of development position because they think the CEO needs to be the chief fundraising officer, which is kind of our own fault as nonprofit leaders.
Speaker 3:For so long, fundraising professionals were told who is the chief fundraiser and we were told the CEO Sure. And that's not entirely true anymore. If you've got a strong fundraising chief, a chief development officer, a VP of advancement, someone who's really taking leadership on that, your CEO is actually able and freed up to be strategic, to handle board relations, to be out in the community, to be a second voice. That's how you position your organization for growth. I truly believe that, as a fundraiser, if I went to some of the people who really care about an organization and its success and said the missing puzzle piece is I need an executive coach for my CEO so they have somebody to confide in. They have someone who's been here before. They can take care of these challenges and deal with this, I think they would invest. I know they'd invest because they do care about organization success.
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Speaker 2:So I think, in my opinion anyway, this is all part of maybe a much broader issue into the nonprofit space, which is the idea that investing in what I'm going to put in air quotes as overhead right is somehow viewed as taking away from the mission, right? So if we invest $10,000 in executive coaching for our CEO and our executive directors to move forward, then that's program money that's not being spent in the community, or that's research money that's not going out or whatever fill in the blank cause, right. But those are pressures that we would never put on a for-profit entity, right? Nobody's coming at them and saying you know, you really could cut the cost of your widget if you didn't spend that money over here in professional development and that would be better for the bottom line. Nobody's putting them accountable to that. And then we hold nonprofits to this standard where it looks almost selfish on behalf of the leaders if they want to invest in themselves in the organization that way, because it's taking away and again air quotes from the mission when really that's so short-sighted.
Speaker 3:It's not a way of running anything Right, and so there's a couple of things here you know. First of all, there's been some research more recently that said that organizations need to actually invest 30% of their budget towards infrastructure and things that are traditionally labeled overhead. So we know, we already have proof that 20% is a myth, and we have letters from all sorts of industry leaders. Unfortunately and I've been in the position with a nonprofit where it did not matter what kind of data you presented Some of those community members were not shifting their mind, and it was at that time just for political reasons. They just didn't want to admit they were wrong and so they wouldn't. Unfortunately, the good thing, the ideal situation, is then just decide they're not for your organization, that they aren't a fit. Unfortunately, that wasn't an option on the table in that situation. But the second thing is that when we start looking at organizations, that are successful.
Speaker 3:Oftentimes they're not the ones playing those little conversations. I mean, how many universities get called out for their overhead? Sure Right. I mean they might get called out for their endowment size? Yeah, but and how many hospital systems and how many larger organizations? Are people really reading through those nine nineties and caring?
Speaker 2:No, it's all the small folks, it's the small lines trying to impact their communities Right.
Speaker 3:It's the small organizations who have recruited board members that they think are the social movers and shakers. And this gets back to this outdated nonprofit model that we have, in that we have told board members for decades. Unfortunately, there is no way the nonprofit can function without some sort of advice from you. You are the smart one, you are the business person, you are the philanthropist, you know this industry. Our poor nonprofit staff can't nearly be smart enough to do this work on their own. They need your expertise. So we literally tell board members the more advice you give, the more successful the organization is going to be.
Speaker 3:In reality, we have to reset that. We have CEOs and we have executive staff that are career professionals. We don't necessarily need a CPA on every board of directors. We do have a treasurer. That's a rule. Yes, we want an extra set of eyes, but if you have a real career CFO, they're going to know more about nonprofit accounting and the challenges than a CPA from a construction firm. Sure, yes, we need community representation on our board of directors. That does not mean the local business leader knows how to run a human service organization.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes to all of that. But there's so much public perception of that that has to shift along with it, because, to your point, we've been telling the same story for decades. Now the research is out there that proves that this, that the narrative is incorrect. But it's so ingrained as part of our culture that everybody knows somebody that's been on the board of a non right and they have shared that experience with their circle of friends and so it has trickled out. Even if someone themselves hasn't sat on the board, they know somebody who has. They've had this experience, and that's that mindset is so prevalent across the board in society. So it's definitely a much larger perception change.
Speaker 3:And wouldn't it be lovely if all of our board members could sit in a room and hear someone say I'm not trying to get your business, I'm not trying to get you to hire me, I'm trying to help you be the exact best board member you can be. And the first thing that is going to involve is not looking cross-eyed at your CEO every morning, trying to take them down. Every morning you should wake up and your board service should bring you joy because it's a volunteer role, and you should think I wonder what I could do to advance that volunteer work today just a little bit. Maybe it's I have coffee with one friend to tell them how much I appreciate this organization, or I'm excited to share an update. Maybe I sell one more gala ticket.
Speaker 3:Maybe I really read those financials thoughtfully and ask questions so I'm well-informed. Perhaps the way I can support the organization today is not sending an angry email to the CEO so that that's how she or he is walking into their office that day. That could be if you as a board member today, right now, just opened your email and just sent an email out to your senior staff and just said today is a good day and our mission is advancing because all of you showed up for work today and we are grateful for that. Just do that, send that email. Yes, that can advance an organization so far because you're being a part of the solution.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, especially in this season where everything is changing so quickly, where nonprofits are facing maybe some budget shortages because of the way that finances are changing. That encouragement goes so far. With an organization like that, especially when things are uncertain, the more that you can be part of the solution and encourage the folks who are on the front line, the better. I love that. And the solution is encourage the folks who are on the front line, the better I love that.
Speaker 3:And the solution is not panicking. Yes, the federal funding situation is scary and it's scary because services could be suspended, services could end, services that people depend on in their communities for child care, for health care, for a lot of things could cease or could pause. Our nonprofit staff are hugely empathetic. They are in this because they truly care about those we serve. And it's straining, but it's time for our communities to gather. I think and I believe they are. I believe in many communities. I believe our community foundations, our funders, our corporate leaders are starting to look at this and assess how do we handle this, what's our path forward? Yeah, I don't think the rest of the community knows that yet, I don't think it's quite gotten out yet, but I do have faith in those who care that things are happening behind the scenes.
Speaker 2:But to your point and I love the don't panic sentence, right, because, yes, an email like that that's showing some stability and showing some encouragement from the board is a fantastic approach. But I had asked previously about, like, what are the things that maybe a CEO or executive director can do as well? And that's the same thing, right? Imagine, in the midst of this chaos, if you got an email from your CEO outlining hey, I know right now everything looks a little uncertain. Just want you to know I appreciate you and the work that you're doing. We're going to continue to do it in the best way possible. Those kinds of sentences instead of you know, my face is on fire and I'm running around and I don't know what's happening and like giving off that panic vibe. Even that changes culture.
Speaker 3:Yeah, kudos to the CEOs who saw the memo, came out, maybe first called their board chair and says I need us to be, I need to start looking at this, I need us to be a team on this. But their second action was an all staff email that said I know it's scary, I don't have the answers. I assure you, I'm trying to work on them and we're in this together as much as we can. One of the little thorns on my side and nonprofit work is when we say to ourselves we can't do a little bit of good, because then what if we're wrong? Or what if it opens up and we are asked to do more good? That's when authenticity comes into and honesty comes into play.
Speaker 3:If I, as a CEO, says I don't have all the answers, but I want you, as my team, to know that we're looking at it, that we're going to do our best, that we're in this together and that we're going to try to find a way through. That goes a long way for your staff, instead of 24 hours being like I still haven't heard from anyone, and the same is for your donors. So your donors are in the same boat. They're looking at this too and thinking, well, what happened to this organization I care about deeply. And then initial conversation. I mean truly copy, paste, paste, change the audience because if it's authentic and truthful and transparent, you know, tell the truth that for no other reason it's the easiest thing to remember. Yeah, send it to the donors and say, yes, we're scared, I don't know what's going on. I'm going to keep you updated as much as I can, but we're prioritizing figuring this out.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, the idea of honest communication because I see this in a lot of nonprofits too is like I don't know what to say because it's changing so fast and I'm scared and so I'm just not going to say anything. But in the absence of communication, people will create their own narrative around that. And so all of a sudden, you have a staff that's buzzing around the water cooler about how we're shutting down and our programs are going to be gone and that and my job is going to be gone, and I, you know, when none of that needed to happen. We're not there yet. Calm down, right, but the lack of of communication can sometimes be the enemy in that organization too. So just taking the step to say I see you, you're doing great, we're going to get through this together, I'm staying on top of it Just that little bit of communication changes culture massively.
Speaker 3:Right. And if you're a board member and you have an organization that's going through this and you're like I don't know how to support them. It's changing too fast, we don't have direction, you go and you buy a coffee and you bring it in the office. Or if they're all remote employees, you get one of those services where you send a gift card over the email, like if your staff is in crisis mode. Kindness is never a bad thing, so just treat them like if they were your friends. Yes, just treat them like if they were your friends.
Speaker 2:Yes, love that. I love that. Okay, so we just have a couple more minutes before we wrap up. If somebody wanted to connect with you, they want to maybe talk more about this. They are interested in maybe helping their nonprofit get to a better place. In those regards, what's the best way to find you and connect with you? What does that look like?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think the best way right now is LinkedIn, which is Abigail Tobio, my last name's T-O-B-I-A. You should be able to find me that way. I do a pretty good job of checking my messages and staying on top of that, so I would say that's the easiest way.
Speaker 2:Fantastic, Well, good. As we wrap up, let me just ask you one final question, and that is in this season, based on all of the things that we have talked about in this conversation. If there was one word of encouragement that you could give to the fundraisers specifically, be it in this season or just in general, if there was one word of encouragement that you could give to the folks in the fundraising field, what would that look like?
Speaker 3:It's okay and feel free to communicate with your donors, that you don't have the answers and that you're working through them and that you'll be in touch and it's okay. I do believe our donors have stepped up in wild and crazy situations. They've stepped up when we had capital campaigns. They've stepped up when we've been forced into campaigns because of our building roof collapse or something. They stepped up during COVID. They've stepped up in times of great opportunities or challenges and this is another challenge and I do have faith in our communities. It is just scary and that's okay to be scared, and then we take a deep breath and we strap on our hiking boots again and tomorrow we try again.
Speaker 2:I love it. Such wisdom, abigail. Thank you, I appreciate all that you had to share. Thanks for joining us today. Again, my guest has been Abigail Tobia, and you can connect with her on LinkedIn If you'd like to learn more. She's always got some really great words of wisdom on LinkedIn as well, so definitely recommend connecting with her that way. This has been another episode of the Nonprofit Hub Podcast. I'm your host, megan Spear, and we'll see you next time.