Nonprofit411 Podcast

The Nonprofit411 Podcast is your go-to podcast for expert insights and practical tips on nonprofit funding and strategy. Hosted by Sarah Barton, each episode features in-depth conversations with industry leaders and innovators who share their knowledge on grant writing, funding opportunities, capacity building, and much more. Whether you’re a seasoned nonprofit professional or just starting out, the Nonprofit411 Podcast provides the resources and inspiration you need to make a greater impact. Tune in to learn from the best and elevate your nonprofit’s success!

Nonprofit411 Podcast is a business podcast hosted by Nonprofit411, with 42 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Nonprofit411 hosts Nonprofit411 Podcast, a business show with 42 episodes published.

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  Episode #6

  Donor Stewardship: Brad Ton on Why a Human Note Beats a Polished One

  Oct 2, 202630 minS2

  The update your donors remember is rarely the polished one. Brad Ton is a senior account executive at FundMiner. He studied sports marketing at Indiana University and sold tickets for the Chicago Bulls and the Indiana Pacers before a sales boot camp through TechPoint, an Indianapolis nonprofit, introduced him to fundraising through OneCause. After eight or nine years in fundraising technology, he moved to the donor relations side, where he works with community foundations and hospital foundations on what happens after the gift. Sarah describes the email she suggests to the rural nonprofits she works with. Open a blank screen and write that you just saw Susie come in, over the moon, because they finished her porch. Brad's first reaction was that there's no ask in it. Send that out. Then he pointed out that before they hit record, Sarah had asked for his mailing address so she could mail him a handwritten note. "That's everything," he said. If stewardship keeps waiting for a free afternoon, this conversation is about sending it anyway. In this episode Why donor relations gets treated as work that doesn't raise money, and why Brad says that couldn't be further from the truth Sarah's porch email, and why the less fancy the update, the better Ten handwritten notes or 500 newsletter emails, and what makes a touch point count A few ideas to apply at your nonprofit Count last week's new donors. Write each one a short note about one thing their gift touched, with no ask. Keep a running bank of small stories as they happen, so impact updates and year-end reports never start from a blank page. Put stewardship on the daily list, not the someday list. Brad keeps his short, works it in order, and crosses things off. Resources Mentioned Connect with Brad FundMiner: https://www.fundminer.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradton/ Connect with Sarah Nonprofit411: https://nonprofit411.org LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nonprofit411 The Generosity Roadmap, a free class: https://nonprofit411.org/generosity_map Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:40 The hobby question 04:02 From ticket sales to nonprofit tech 08:24 Fundraising isn't begging 09:40 What happens after the gift 12:05 Technology that frees us to be human 13:08 The porch email 13:57 Why stewardship gets pushed aside 15:21 One email, one reader 17:30 A bank of stories 18:07 Making it a habit 19:08 The bar for human connection 20:02 Ten notes or 500 emails 21:45 Count your new donors 23:13 Technology as a habit tool 24:35 Human is better than done 25:25 Video messages, stumbles and all 27:34 Where to find Brad 28:12 Stack days

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  Episode #5

  Corporate Partnerships: Dan Drucker on Moving Past Sponsorships

  Sep 25, 202637 minS2

  A sponsorship pays for one program. A partnership can change what your organization is able to do next year. Dan Drucker spent more than 35 years in corporate B2B sales and marketing, the last twenty or so at Canon, running sales and marketing for the US. He retired at the start of 2024 and founded Philanthropy Fuel, where he helps nonprofits build corporate partnerships. He writes The Fuel Tank, a free weekly newsletter. He volunteers at an animal shelter, and he and his wife are birders. Dan tells the story of a conversation he had with the head of employee volunteerism at Goldman Sachs. He was asking her about her work when it occurred to him to ask whether the bank's financial experts ran financial literacy workshops in underfunded communities. They did. It's one of the biggest things they do. He was already working with a hospital system in an underfunded community near him. He introduced the two. That match existed before the call; nobody had asked the question. If the only thing you've ever asked a business for is a check, this conversation is about everything else you could be asking for. In this episode Why a sponsorship keeps an organization living paycheck to paycheck, and what a partnership does instead The translation test: the two-word question that turns your impact into something a business can use Skills-based volunteering, and why twenty scientists beat twenty extra hands on a volunteer day A few ideas to apply at your nonprofit Take one line from your last appeal and ask "so what?" until it describes something a business gets. "We planted 10,000 trees" becomes a hands-on volunteer experience their employees will ask about. Write down every business you already know: current sponsors, vendors, volunteers' employers, board connections, recurring donors. Those calls are warm. Start there before you research anyone new. Look past the CSR officer. Employee engagement, HR, marketing, and volunteer services all have a reason to say yes, and they're easier to reach. Resources Mentioned Connect with Dan Philanthropy Fuel: https://www.philanthropyfuel.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/druckerdan/ The Fuel Tank, his free weekly newsletter, comes out every Sunday. Sign up from his website or LinkedIn. Connect with Sarah Nonprofit411: https://nonprofit411.org LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nonprofit411 The Generosity Roadmap, a free class: https://nonprofit411.org/generosity_map Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:03 Photography, Birding, and Paying Attention 03:31 Thirty-Five Years on the Corporate Side 04:57 Two Sides That Don't Speak the Same Language 07:13 Start by Looking Inward 11:59 The Translation Test 16:07 Your Sponsors Are Your First Stop 20:04 Reaching Beyond Your Region 22:17 Sponsorship or Partnership 25:08 Skills-Based Volunteering 30:15 Joint Research With Health and Education 31:42 Where to Start Today

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  Episode #4

  Burnout Isn't Inevitable with Abbey Harlow | Nonprofit411 Podcast

  Sep 18, 202634 minS2

  Abbey Harlow works with rural nonprofits, and she'll tell you burnout isn't a personal failing. Abbey Harlow founded Harlow Nonprofit Consulting in 2022, after twenty years in nonprofit strategy, fundraising, and facilitation. She came in sideways: music venues, a semester interning at a Smithsonian museum, then fundraising jobs at museums and performing arts organizations. She works from rural Vermont, where she grew up and lives now, and she helps stretched teams move out of survival mode. Abbey walks through an exercise she runs with rural leaders. Write down everything you did in the last week. Sort each item into one of four quadrants: urgent and important, urgent but not important, and so on. Then look at what surprised you, and which quadrant took more of your week than you meant to give it. The last question is the one that does the work: what could you have delegated, and if there's nobody to delegate to, what could you have not done, and how would that have felt? Most of us keep carrying tasks because we assume something bad happens if we stop. Naming the task makes that assumption testable. If the only advice you've been given about burnout is to take better care of yourself, this conversation offers a different place to look. In this episode: The three things rural leaders named when Abbey surveyed them: funding, isolation, and burnout Why the burnout conversation starts with a sector-wide belief about mission work, not with the individual The four-quadrant exercise she runs with leaders, and the question at the end of it A few ideas to apply at your nonprofit: Write down everything you did last week and sort it by urgent and important. Look for the quadrant that took more of your week than you meant to give it. Pick one task you've been carrying and ask what would actually happen if it didn't get done. Test that assumption before you keep paying for it. Try one micro boundary. One leader Abbey works with stopped answering email the minute it arrived, and found that some things resolved without her. Resources Mentioned Connect with Abbey Harlow Nonprofit Consulting: https://www.harlownonprofitconsulting.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harlownonprofitconsulting Rural Nonprofit Leader Summit: https://www.harlownonprofitconsulting.com/rural-nonprofit-leader-summit Connect with Sarah Nonprofit411: https://www.nonprofit411.org LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nonprofit411 The Generosity Roadmap for Nonprofits, a free class to explore the systems that keep community at the heart of fundraising: https://nonprofit411.org/generosity_map Chapters 00:00 Introduction 09:47 Funding, isolation, burnout 11:57 Squeezing water from dry sponges 19:22 Burnout starts with the system 20:49 The four-quadrant exercise 29:23 What every rural leader should know

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  Episode #4

  Kind Persuasion: Madeleine Nance on Asking Without the Ick

  Sep 11, 202635 minS2

  Kind Persuasion — with Madeleine Nance Your supporters have already told you why they give. Most organizations let it evaporate. Madeleine Nance has spent seventeen years in the nonprofit sector. She started in-house in Australia as a development director, working inside three organizations that ranged from an animal shelter to one of the country's largest national charities. She then spent seven years as a fundraising copywriting specialist, and now runs Kind Word, where the work is mostly strategy and training. She joins Sarah to explain where fundraising copy actually starts: not with words, but with the person who is going to read them. She walks through a real example. A woman being interviewed for an animal organization mentioned, almost in passing, that she keeps old towels in the back of her car, just in case she comes across an injured animal that needs help. That one sentence tells you more about who gives to that cause than any donor persona ever will. Put it in an appeal, and the next supporter reads it and recognizes herself. If your appeals sound like everyone else's, this episode explains why, and what to do about it. In this episode: The name cover test, a five-minute check on whether your copy sounds like anyone at all The four steps of Kind Persuasion: I care, I feel this, I trust you with this, I'm in The one phrase to listen for in every supporter conversation Why demographic personas miss what actually moves people How to reframe the ask so it stops feeling like a favor you're begging for A few ideas to apply at your nonprofit: Cover your logo and read your last appeal cold. If a stranger couldn't name your cause, the words aren't working yet. Start a spreadsheet. Every time a supporter tells you why they give, write down their exact words. In a few months you'll hold language more persuasive than anything you'd draft alone. Listen for "I'm the kind of person who…" Everything that comes after it is usable. Open donor interviews with easy yes-or-no questions, then follow with "tell me more." People warm up as they go. Decide what feeling you're after before you write, whether that's warmth, outrage, or heartbreak, then build toward it on purpose. Resources Mentioned Connect with Madeleine Kind Word: https://kindwordreview.com Join Madeleine's newsletter where she shares Kind Persuasion strategies for cause leaders: https://resources.kindwordreview.com/profile LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/madeleinenance/ Connect with Sarah Nonprofit411: https://www.nonprofit411.org LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nonprofit411 The Generosity Roadmap for Nonprofits, a free class: https://nonprofit411.org/generosity_map Chapters 00:00 Introduction 06:03 Where Copywriting Actually Starts 14:11 Tapping Into What People Care About 21:14 The Name Cover Test 28:01 Persuasion Without Pressure

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  Episode #3

  Gold Mines of Stories - with Don Martelli, PR Bunker | Nonprofit411 Podcast

  Aug 28, 202625 minS2

  Gold Mines of Stories — with Don Martelli Every nonprofit is sitting on a gold mine of stories. Most never mine them. Don Martelli is a former Boston Globe reporter and longtime PR agency executive who now leads PR Bunker, working with mission-driven, impact-focused organizations. He helps nonprofits tell the stories their communities need to hear so they can engage the people who fuel the mission. He joins Sarah to explain how nonprofit PR actually works: how to find the one human story that carries your whole mission, how to place it with the right reporter at the right moment, and how to turn a single piece of coverage into a campaign that raises real money. He walks through a real example. A woman named Lisa, once homeless, now helping others through the same organization that housed her. That one story, told well, raised nearly a quarter million dollars in a week. If PR feels like a black box, this episode opens it. In this episode: The "micro that fits the macro" method for finding a story reporters actually want Why the most positive stories are the hardest to place, and how to place them anyway Paid, earned, shared, and owned media, explained simply How to pitch a reporter in 250 words or fewer Why a fractional expert often beats hiring in-house A few ideas to steal: The story is the headline. If you have to sell it, it isn't a story yet. Keep the pitch to one paragraph, then follow up until you get a yes, a no, or silence. Silence is a no. End or start each week by asking your team, "What happened this week that made you feel good?" Those are your stories. Someone has to own collecting them. One good story, repurposed across your site, newsletter, socials, and a podcast, is a marketing campaign, not a one-and-done. Connect with Don PR Bunker: www.prbunker.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/donmartelli The PR Bunker podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-pr-bunker/id1839463900 Connect with Sarah Nonprofit 411: www.nonprofit411.org LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nonprofit411 The Generosity Roadmap for Nonprofits, a free class to explore the systems that keep community at the heart of fundraising: https://nonprofit411.org/generosity_map Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Nonprofit 411 02:57 The Power of Impactful Storytelling 05:56 Telling Impactful Stories through PR 09:06 Advice for Nonprofits on PR 17:23 The Role of Consultants in Nonprofits 24:09 Utilizing Impactful Stories in Nonprofits

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