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
Money Matters: Navigating Nonprofit Funding Challenges
Funding challenges affect nonprofits of all sizes, but the solutions might surprise you. In this eye-opening conversation, Charlyn Moss, founder and CEO of Working Within, reveals how her journey from finance to nonprofit support showed her the critical gaps between grassroots organizations and their well-funded counterparts.
Moss challenges conventional nonprofit thinking with a provocative insight: trying to be everything to everyone actually makes your organization less attractive to funders. When you spread yourself too thin chasing various funding opportunities, you dilute your expertise and struggle to compete against organizations with deep specialization. The most successful nonprofits understand that going narrow first and broad later creates a stronger foundation for growth and impact.
Whether you're starting from scratch or reimagining your approach after funding changes, this conversation provides actionable insights to strengthen your organization's financial foundation. As Moss reminds us with her parting wisdom: funding challenges come in cycles, and "this too shall pass" for organizations willing to adapt thoughtfully.
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Non-profits. Are you ready to spend less time on paperwork and more time making an impact? Save big on Adobe Acrobat Pro, the leading PDF and e-signature tool built for mission-driven work. Apply for your discount now at adobecom. Slash nonprofits, slash acrobat. Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast. I'm your host, Megan Spear, joined today by Sharlyn Moss, who's the founder and CEO of Working Within, Very excited to dig into a conversation with her that I don't think we've had on the podcast yet this season, which is really exciting. I'm thrilled to hear her perspective on a lot of these things. So, Sharlyn, welcome in. Thank you, Megan. Thanks for having me. Yeah, my pleasure. So introduce yourself a little bit to our audience. What's your background in nonprofit? How did we get to this conversation today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I always take a deep breath before I tell this story, because I basically stumbled into this field after just noticing a lot of tough things about the funding world, and so so I actually originally grew up loving math and thinking I was going to be this big business person, and so I studied finance and I went the banking route and saw how corporate debt worked really exciting stuff.
Speaker 2:But I quickly realized I wanted to do something more purposeful, and so that led me to kind of flipping the coin on its head and saying let me go work with different foundations and nonprofit funders after graduating.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, to see kind of behind the scenes how different funding decisions were made and especially funding decisions for like a really big proposals, hundreds of millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars that are going out the door to nonprofits. While that experience was really valuable for me, it showed me just a kind of a capital, or it showed me an access issue that I was noticing between grassroots nonprofit leaders who are effectively starved for capital and trying to raise all the time and separate nonprofit leaders who have access to these huge grant dollar opportunities from these huge sources. And so, while I observed that pattern, it was disheartening in one arena but also motivating led me to do some pro bono grant writing in 2022. And then I got hired for a contract and then just kind of built my firm from there. So that's how I got into nonprofit space, actually starting from the funder side and then trying to flip it around and use that to support the nonprofit leaders I am surrounded by here in Denver and then across the country too.
Speaker 1:I love it. I am entirely the opposite, because I will do everything in my power to avoid the math. I just that is not the way that I have been gifted. I have. I know that I have bring a lot of talents to the table. If it has to do with numbers, that is not on the list. Yeah, not on the list at all, that's wrong, I mean everybody, yeah yeah, everybody has their own skill set.
Speaker 1:so I want to talk about that funding discrepancy that you just mentioned right where we have it's such a broken model, yes, where we have these massive organizations that can access all the funding and then some of the boots on the ground, grassroots kind of local orgs who may not have access to that, and that is actually who we have a lot of in our audience is the smaller nonprofit. So I'd like to kind of take it from that perspective. If someone is that grassroots leader, they're leading an organization that's hyperlocal or just starting, or maybe they're having trouble taking it to that next level. What are some of the mistakes that you see or what are some of the gaps that you see most often within that type of organization, within those that community?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question. Two big ones come to mind immediately. And the first one you've probably heard with different conversations that you've had and discussed at length. But the first thing I see and I love working with grassroots leaders too, so I totally see this is, I don't know, like a tendency to mission creep, like this wants this and this funder wants that, and oh, there's a tranche of funding from the feds coming down for this, like apprenticeship, you know, tech, cybersecurity, I mean.
Speaker 2:So just seeing different organizations try to stretch and expand their missions to be all encompassing, when really that can be something that limits, kind of how attractive you are to a funder and also kind of dilutes your expertise. So maybe you started out as being this organization that really wants to support food access because you live in a food desert and you have been gardening and you have sustainability kind of elements within your programming. But then there's another grant for community wealth building and then there's a grant for something environmental solutions and research and then, and so over time, and probably over the span of maybe a few years, that organization could start to birth into something else and be pulled from the kind of route that it initially started with. And when that does happen, it does get harder to talk about the organization, it gets harder to get people behind the organization, and so it's always great to go narrow first and broad later. It's the same in business too, right, yeah?
Speaker 2:And then the second one would just be sometimes you know a fear around fundraising, and I you know there's a few ways it could come from. It could be a fear of self-promotion or just feeling like self-promotion is wrong. It could also feel you could have an icky feeling around asking for money, not you know one person explicitly, but just maybe culturally. Or you know just kind of those mindset barriers that can make being a grassroots nonprofit leader more difficult. You know, especially if you're a little nervous to like self-promote your organization, especially if it's in the early stages, or even get those first investments, because people want to invest in things are confident in, and so you've got to be confident in those things too.
Speaker 1:That's so good. I want to go back to the mission creep for a second, because this is actually now the second time it's come up on the podcast in the last couple of months. We had Matt Lombardi on a couple of months ago talking about some of the lessons that nonprofits can learn from the for-profit side on running lean and starting small and growing from there. But I think you made an interesting statement where you said it actually makes you less attractive to funders and I think that goes against everything we would think. Right, when we try to be all things to all people, then surely everyone's going to love us because we are all things. But you're saying no. So expand on that a little bit for me, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think that you know we're really starting.
Speaker 2:We're starting to kind of build on that topic, like you mentioned, the similarities and differences between nonprofits and businesses, because this is another part when I and any of us could take on and be super empathetic to the funder perspective, probably getting a lot of requests all year round, probably know a lot of organizations doing a lot of similar work, and so when we start to empathize with the funder perspective, they know the best in class for each focus area community wealth, food access, environmental concern, climate.
Speaker 2:They know who's operating as the complete expert in those fields, or at least the top few. If they come across a proposal, for example, that has an organization doing five of those focus areas with no clear advantage over those other bigger players and it doesn't even mean bigger in budget size, I just mean bigger in expertise or in track record. That creates a less competitive application against the very high competition that exists in the nonprofit sector. So I know competition and the competitive analysis and all those words can be a little. You know, maybe sometimes we don't want to call people that, we want to call them collaborators, but ultimately when we're going up for funding considerations, like we are competing with different organizations and so being broad and not deep makes the organization hard to stick out in those different areas, and we all know funders like to fund based on certain focus areas.
Speaker 1:That's so good.
Speaker 1:So I'm in Pittsburgh, which has a really amazing grant culture, so many good organizations, foundations that are giving grants out of Pittsburgh, giving grants out of Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1:But it does create, maybe, more of a competitive atmosphere where we look at some of the like, well, I want to beat them, I want to win out over them, right, it creates this competitive nature between nonprofits that, personally, has always bugged me a little bit, because I think when we have that sort of competition, it leads to less collaboration, yeah, right. And so I'm wondering, in the model that you're talking about, right, if I could just say I'm an expertise, or I'm an expert at this thing, but I'm going to collaborate with the organization down the street that is an expert at this thing and we're going to work together to do both of the things. Man, what could we do as a world, right, if we could embrace that collaboration idea and understand that it really does pay off to just stick in your lane, not just from a funding perspective, but just an evening collaboration. I, oh, that would be a really exciting idea.
Speaker 2:Yes, no, you're exactly right. And when you stay in your lane, it makes people want to collaborate with you, like you're basically saying. You know, it makes people want to think oh, if I need a data partner, let me go to this organization. Oh, I need a youth programming partner, let me not try to absorb youth programming, let me go to this partner. We uh yeah that we have, with both success and failure, tried those paths because sometimes you know you really have to nurture partnerships and at the same time, it'd be really effective. We literally just submitted something where, yeah, two different organizations had to come together because, I mean, it's better to just not try to do it all. It stretches your resources really thin.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I something that I would say. Maybe the nonprofit hub radio listeners are sick of hearing me say, but I will say it again, this is the hill on which I will die is that I think sometimes and with your background I'd love your perspective Sometimes we look at nonprofit and we think that it that means we should run our companies or run our organizations a certain way. But nonprofit is literally just a tax status. It has no implication on the bottom line of how you run the business. And I would say, a lot of folks that I have met who are fantastic nonprofit leaders are like me and they don't want, like the money part, not their strongest suit, the budget, the math, the just, not not our forte. So if that's the person right when you're talking to folks, how do you help them over that hurdle? How do you? What would you say to somebody who is is thinking that the actual business, acumen and all of those pieces don't necessarily matter? Right, because it's a nonprofit, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I totally understand where you're coming from and, again, like, we all have our different strengths, so, very valid, you gotta people, gotta someone's gotta be the visionary, okay. But you're right, and this is something that we've run into a few different ways, like as you could imagine and how we like to think about it. We kind of turn the business acumen on its head and call it fundability. What we are focused on with organizations at all times is maximizing your fundability, which is, in effect, running an excellent business. Right? That's also fundability, or the degree to which you can attract and retain customers, basically in the business world. And so when we break down fundability, it gives us the room to be specific to nonprofit leaders without throwing just trying to apply business on a separate industry. But it also allows us to embed some of those business principles.
Speaker 2:For example, some of the fundability metrics we look at are you big enough to have staffing? That will signal a lot about your resources and your ability to attract resources. But also a more nonprofit kind of indicator that we'll look at is like do you have a theory of change? Are you tracking impact? Do you have an impact report? And those are things that a business doesn't do, and so we try to mesh those different topics and also recognizing the feedback we've all received probably over the years from different foundations and donors and sponsors, meshing that feedback all together, we try to really evaluate for fundability and that's kind of how we break it down. But it is not an overnight type of thing. It's a long-term conversation as well because there are a few mindset shifts that are key to have. When you're thinking about running a, like you said, tax designated nonprofit organization Doesn't mean you shouldn't have profit no profit at the end of the year, and that requires some switch in mindset too.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, and even that sentence that you just said, I think, throws people for a loop sometimes, Like no, I'm not supposed to make a profit, but you still have to be sustainable. Right, those two things have to go hand in hand, and I'm curious, in your opinion, what are the other? You know we were talking before the show some of those other pieces around debt or lines of credit that maybe are new to nonprofit leaders in terms of how they function and how they understand the business side of what they're doing. So I'd love to hear your take on some of those things too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Because, yeah, from a business perspective, it's pretty normalized to pull on debt, like whether it's a credit card or a small loan or a big loan or something else, and it's pretty common We'll hear about to take on equity, we'll hear about venture capital, angel investors, things like that. We don't need to get deep into that, but that is typical in the business world because we recognize we're building and we have to prove ourselves, and so there's a cost to get money before we can prove ourselves. And the nonprofit world it does get a bit different, because the funding sources are different and in many ways nicer, but not without their own challenges. Right, okay, we can get grant funding, but again, sometimes you know grants aren't going to come to a fresh organization. Right, we have to prove ourselves. We can get individuals and sponsors, but those again will likely rely on earlier already had relationships and or won't suffice to create an annual budget.
Speaker 2:You need to run something sustainably, and so I am a staunch advocate for exploring other financing and funding options, especially in the early stages, because debt, really, you know, to me taking out debt, just like in business, just means that you believe in what you're doing and that you believe it will generate a positive benefit for everyone involved, which means you will attract dollars in the future. That's all debt is, and it's just making that early commitment. And so, speaking as a business owner who has taken out debt since and I've talked to different nonprofit leaders about this that there is a hesitancy around you know, around being able to use a loan or a line of credit to grow your impact, whether that's for hires that help you serve more students or access more neighborhoods. There is a general resistance around that and I want to do my part in helping to advocate responsibly about the possibility that debt, in addition to your other traditional fundraising methods, can create for your organization, because if you're really accountable to that debt, it can honestly unlock a whole another level of growth in kind of your nonprofit leader journey, because you will adopt that business acumen quicker because, again, that debt is online. So I think it's a unique tool. It's not for everyone, but there are cases where I think it absolutely could make sense, and so that's my, that's my. What is it?
Speaker 2:Oh, my gosh, my pedestal. Yeah, that's my life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, your little soapbox.
Speaker 2:Yes, that is my soapbox on that. I'm very passionate about it.
Speaker 1:If you want to spend less time on paperwork and more time making an impact, we have the solution for you. With Adobe Acrobat Pro, you can streamline reports, speed up contracts with e-signatures and create polished PDFs that inspire donors and engage volunteers. Work smarter with cloud access, top-tier security and powerful editing tools designed for teams on a mission. And with special nonprofit pricing it's efficiency you can afford. Apply for your discount now at adobecom. Slash nonprofits, slash Acrobat. I think that's one of those things that it is a common business practice, but I feel like there's a tendency within the nonprofit space to not. We don't want to be too corporate, we don't want to be too, you know, in the markets and all of those things, because that feels riskier. Right? I'm wondering, as you are working with your clients at working within, do you see pushback on that? Is it something that people are embracing? What's the kind of mentality that you see around it right now?
Speaker 2:yeah, so I have seen both okay. So here's the thing I think debt works for folks who want to stay with their organization for a long time and are absolutely counting on it growing and have seen growth. I think these conversations stop short with leaders who might be ready to transition out of their organization, who might be tired, who just might be kind of just having endured already enough, and so there are definitely two, be kind of just, you know, having endured already enough, and so there are definitely two different kind of senses of mindset that are resonating or not with this approach. But just as an example, you know, the type of leader who's excited about something like that is, yeah, trying to grow the space he can use to host programming and he's seen year over year growth in his organization, and so those types of conversations go really well. And as I talk to him I get more and more feedback and I'm kind of just playing like what liaison between all these folks to see what could work.
Speaker 2:And then there's conversations where it's like, oh, it's my board trying to convince my board about debt. My board, who may not even be, have run a nonprofit before, kind of have that experience. Those conversations can get challenging. So I've seen and heard pushback from both nonprofit leaders and funders who mentioned the board being an important and sometimes more resistant piece than even the nonprofit leader themselves. So that's how the conversations are going, but I think ultimately there is a huge need right now and urgency around creating new funding streams because, as we know, the federal landscape of funding has totally been decimated, and so there is an absolute need to be creative about this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is for sure. It has definitely been an interesting year. We've seen a number of folks who are from organizations that have been traditionally grant funded, who have been coming to do non-profit hub courses and classes and webinars because they've never had to host a fundraiser before, they've never had to build a monthly giver program, they've never done a major gifts program. There's all these things that have never, have never had to happen because they relied on the grant money for so long. Uh, we're, yeah, have a whole series on kind of back to basics for a lot of those pieces.
Speaker 1:So I'm curious, I'd like to, I'm going to ask you a question. I'd like you to answer it in two ways, if you will. One, if we're speaking to maybe that startup, grassroots, non-profit, starting out from the jump, and two, to that same audience of we've always had grant funding. We've never had to really think about it, and now we're expanding the program that way. But I'm curious is there something that you see as maybe the first step of best practice when we're talking about funding or when we're talking about figuring out our strategy, even just around finances in general? Is there something that you see as the best practice of? Like this is how we start to get it moving in the right direction, and is it different for those two groups? Maybe it's the same answer. I'll leave that to you, but I'm curious your thoughts on that. Ooh, yeah, so this is.
Speaker 2:You know I get pushback on this sometimes, but it is the same answer for both groups and one might have it already, they just need to revisit and the other might need to create it, but it's the same thing. And so the first step when you're looking to diversify revenue streams or start them, we want to make sure that you've got a really clear theory of change. And I'm sure it's been discussed or talked about. You may have heard logic model or you may have heard theory of action. You know reasonably the same thing with minor differences, but the theory of change for each organization and nonprofit is the same as a business's reason to exist.
Speaker 2:And if that theory of change doesn't make sense and it can't show the line of benefit you're providing, that leads to no dollars. Same way, a business with no reason to exist leads to no dollars. And so, with the theory of change, really simply that's a four-part kind of graphic you can create, and here are the four parts that are really important, just to gut check and make sure what you're doing is going to be seen as valuable by someone else enough to give dollars. I want to make sure there's a clear problem that's being solved with data and so that data might be local, or if it's not a national organization, or if it's a tiny neighborhood that you're wanting to serve and start an organization in. Whatever data you have and the problem that you say you're addressing, we have to make sure it's documented somewhere and that we're not only using our own experience to code what we're doing as an organization.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's so critical, so critical, that's so critical. Just say the sentence again one more time, because so often we do, live we base like. This has been my personal experience. So I'm going to start a non-profit that fixes this problem, but no one else is having that problem. Yep, oh, say it again.
Speaker 2:yes, you said it. I mean that's it right. Like we all feel things and have challenges.
Speaker 2:Of course, sure, the problem is there with the data right yes, yeah, yeah, we always start with that, regardless of where you're at, and then from there you know we're looking at. What outcomes are you working toward long term? Your vision statement does it connect to this problem you just named? So that outcome that you're pursuing, that problem statement, outcome are two ends of your graphic. In between you've got your activities that address that problem and your outputs, your shortterm outcomes of those activities. So maybe the people you serve, their short-term results and leading to that outcome we mentioned. So four-part kind of graphic that you're building and then you'll start to see how many problems am I trying to solve and typically it's not just one.
Speaker 2:And again, that's a problem that really burdens the nonprofit sector, which again makes it hard to be the expert in your area.
Speaker 2:So that's step number one, because once you know that those kind of the problem statements you're addressing, the outcome, long-term outcomes, your activities, your outputs, then you'll be able to know who wants to support that work, whether it's a foundation, a corporation, a certain group of individuals, a certain major gift person. What type of fundraising event makes sense, who might want to partner with you and go in event makes sense, who might want to partner with you and go in on things together, who might want to buy what you sell in your activities. And so that's what we do first, so that we can all be on the same page, because typically, again, that is assumed but not documented clearly for large and early organizations, yeah. And then from there you're able to kind of look at the market I say in quotes, because you can see what opportunities are available, build your strategy for fundraising that way, rather than just setting a goal and hoping to hit it right. We always look at the market first and say what's reasonable and what timeframe to make sure we're creating a budget that makes sense.
Speaker 1:So good? I you're right it is. I think I would have assumed it was this a different answer for both groups. But when we break it down to that solid foundation, you know, maybe your funding is not what it used to be. So you've got to come back to that root of like who are we serving, what are we trying to do and how do we look at the landscape and be a part of it? In this season which, oh, that can be such, that can be so hard, especially if you're used to like the money just comes in because we have this grant. Exactly having to reevaluate is a is almost tougher than starting from scratch and being that grassroots boots on the ground kind of bootstrapping leader right now.
Speaker 2:Yes, especially if you've just been slowly expanding over time and you're like, oh wow, why are we here? You know, and business owners do the same thing, right, so it's just all of us who are participating in this market like that.
Speaker 1:I love it. Charlene, I'm curious about working within. Tell me a little bit about the company and the type of work you do in the organizations that you work with.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, we operate like an agency and we come in as fractional development officers for different nonprofit clients. We love working with the grassroots organizations, so that is not a fake bias.
Speaker 1:We have yeah.
Speaker 2:Again, because we know that those are where the big gaps are. So we're looking to. You know, we work with folks who have under two and a half million dollars operating they're running with, because that's when the diversification of revenue can be really important and accelerate things. We work with leaders who represent the communities they serve. A lot of our clients have been in Denver, but we've worked with clients in St Louis and Durham, North Carolina. So we're slowly spreading because a lot of these problems, as we probably all are resonating, are just existing all across the country and probably the world. Right, we just haven't gotten there.
Speaker 1:I know we would all love to think that we are the special little unicorn and no one has ever faced the same problem that we are having. It is just not. That's just not real. It's just. We're all in it together. Everyone is having the same problem. I promise you are not alone. Yes, especially now.
Speaker 2:So, yes, that is who we love working with, folks who are passionate and right and growing, you know, and who are willing to learn and adapt and just feel like there's a level that they can hit but haven't yet in terms of just opening up the revenue doors for the organization and seeing what they can do. So, yeah, we are, we are I was going to say industry agnostic, but you know there's no. What's the term profit world? We don't have a certain focus area for nonprofits because, yeah, Multi-vertical. Yeah, multi-vertical.
Speaker 2:There you go Revenue Right and for, yeah, there's, it's similar, it's similar for all of them. So, yeah, that's what we do. Yeah, we've raised, we are counting, we are at $1.3 million. We're almost three years in business. So, yeah, we're just growing and yeah, it's been a journey. We've learned a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's especially in this industry right now.
Speaker 2:There is always something new to learn. Yes, always there, always will be too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. So, as we wrap up, the question that I've been asking everybody in this season of the podcast is if you could give one piece of wisdom or encouragement or insight to nonprofit leaders right now. What would that be?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, my first response to that question is this too shall pass. Yes, yeah, I was speaking with a foundation executive in another state and he, you know more seasoned, was saying this has happened before, not in this exact way, but this is this happens, just like things happen in other sectors, and you will recover and it's, you know, just helping us all to evolve as we need to. And so this too shall pass. It's a period, but it's not, you know, eternity. So good, I love that word.
Speaker 1:Well, charlene, thank you so much for being here today. This was a really great conversation and a look at the finance side that we have not had on the podcast before, so I really appreciated the conversation and the insights.
Speaker 2:Oh well, thank you for having me, megan. Yeah, great conversation. I'm so excited for what you're doing at Nonprofit Hub. Yeah, just keep it up.
Speaker 1:Very good. Thank you so much Again. My guest has been Sharlyn Moss, who's the founder and CEO of Working Within, and we'll link the website for Working Within in the show notes, so make sure you go check that out. This has been another episode of the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast. I'm your host, megan Spear, and we'll see you next time.