You Don’t Have To Go At It Alone: Stories from Mentoring

Nonprofit leaders- Founders and new Executive Directors- find setting up, running a nonprofit, or fundraising daunting. They feel alone and overwhelmed.

I know because I talk to nonprofit leaders often about their challenges- both in the organization and personally during our mentoring.  Three nonprofit leaders come to mind.

Meet Amy

Amy is the founder of an organization that built a school for Kenyan children. She came to me for help with building a board. The main challenge she faced was having a board that wasn’t as engaged as she would like and did not contribute to fundraising. We decided on a goal and plan of action and for one month, we worked toward the goal. Our main concern was setting expectations both now and moving forward. Ultimately, she built two boards, one for operations in Kenya and one for fundraising in the US.

Meet Lily

Lily is the founder of an organization that mentors young women. She needed to build an engaged board. Working with Lily uncovered a need for expectations and a potential board package. We also uncovered some beliefs that were holding her back from building the board of her dreams. Lily decided to take a step back, suspend operations, and focus on building her board the correct way.. Months later, Lily emailed me to say that she had let two board members go who weren’t engaged and signed two new board members. They were excited about the organization’s mission and were ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work.

Meet Devin

Devon is a new Executive Director. This is her first time in the position and the first Executive Director in the nonprofit. She balanced her executive director role and all the nonprofit fundraising and operations since she is the only employee. Devon and I worked on a fundraising plan to help keep fundraising manageable and to be able to communicate fundraising activities and needs to the board. She feels so much more confident talking to her board about fundraising.

In each case, we talk about the challenge, formulate a plan, and every week we video call to work through the next action step. We bounce ideas off each other to find the right solution for the person and the organization. These nonprofit leaders aren’t alone.

If you find yourself needing someone to work through challenges with, book a mentoring informational call with me. It’s a free no pressure call.