Episodes

I know how much work it is to score a big policy win. If you're working toward one right now, I am cheering you on. And I'm affirming that you're gonna get that policy win. So the last thing I want to see happen is for you to make one or more of three common mistakes that can wind up greatly diminishing that win. Whatever you're working on that's a policy change at whatever level of government. Getting that legislation or other policy that you've advocated for, getti...

When it comes to successfully engaging decisionmakers and getting them to invest fully in our work, it's all about skills. Of course, no matter where you are in your messaging and engagement skill-development journey, there’s always a next level to master. But the real test of how urgent it is for you to increase your skills, is the results you're getting. If every time you go talk to a decisionmaker, they're leaning in, they 100% get the value of your work and they can't wait to invest. I'd s...

A lot of us, especially Gen Xers, were taught a lot of things about how important it is to be modest. Don't brag about yourself. Heck, don't even talk about yourself. We were taught to regard modesty as a great virtue. But there's a serious problem with that when we're talking about getting decisionmakers to invest in our work. Because they need to know how great our work is, and how great we are at making a huge impact through that work. They need to know how we're leading the field with our w...

We hear all the time about how important it is to tell client stories. But we seldom get much more guidance than that. And the truth is that number one, client stories are only a small part of the overall storytelling toolkit for Nonprofit leaders. And number two, even with client stories, simply telling them does not guarantee any sort of a result or impact. Storytelling can be an incredibly powerful tool in your advocacy toolkit, IF you build your stories for results. Like every other part of...

How many times have you dealt with a funding decisionmaker who is tempted by the low-cost alternative to your services? And how many times have you been challenged on your prices? This is a really common problem and it came up in a session with one of my coaching clients last week. As we were talking, it became clear they were missing a critical ingredient in their messaging that’s essential for dealing with this specific problem. Here’s what was going on. My client was dealing with a group of...

We're all witnessing some truly devastating and distressing actions against our immigrant neighbors. We may be watching this from afar, or we may be seeing it up close and personal. There are almost two reactions that happen at the same time. One is we are tempted to recoil in horror and push it away. And the other is to step forward and help. What is awesome about Nonprofit leaders is that generally we're wired to step in and help. It's what we do. But it would be e...

As a Nonprofit leader/advocate, you already know that information alone doesn't engage. But here's what I see as a flashing red signal. AI is transforming the information ecosystem. It's now easier than ever to get just about any information you might want or need, in fairly complex form, just by asking. The bottom line is that if decisionmakers just needed information, they would no longer particularly need us. They can get that on their own. They can just ask their favorite AI ...

There's a mistake that every Nonprofit leader makes from time to time. In fact, we all make this mistake, not just in our work, but in multiple aspects of our lives. And if we can be attentive enough and fix it, we can absolutely transform our results and massively reduce our level of frustration. Here's what I'm talking about. It's the curse of the expert. We know way too much about every aspect of the work that we do and the impact it has. And we correctly recognize that all those de...

One of my New Year's resolutions for 2026 is to make more mistakes. And I gotta tell you, it's been very interesting to see the reaction it gets when I tell people that. A few people get it and cheer me on. But a lot of folks look at me kind of funny and ask, why on earth would you wanna do that? That got me thinking about how much energy people put into trying to avoid mistakes and what that can wind up costing us. It also got me thinking about how this applies inside Non...

As Nonprofit leaders, we all have a relationship with power. But it's not something that we tend to take a look at much. And I think perhaps the reason for that is what a lot of Nonprofit leaders tell me – that they're not super comfortable with the concept of power. Today I want to really dig into some questions that will help us all understand our relationship with power a little bit better, and perhaps begin to shift that relationship a little bit. The thing is, our relations...

As we're coming right up on the close of 2025, I think it's always important to do a review and take stock of the year that's just gone by. And it might be more important than ever in this particular year, given what a wild ride it's been. There's a lot of different ways you can come at a year-end review, and you probably already have a process in place in your organization. But I'd like to call out something specific that I think is especially important at the close of 2025. And that'...

Why is there so much dumb public policy and what can we do about it? There's government money to address a service need in just about every arena, which is great. But the flip side of that is the rules that are attached to that money. The rules about who can be served, how they can be served, under what circumstances, how money can be spent. All those rules, more often than not, get in the way of Nonprofits’ ability to provide a high-quality service that is going to actually solve the probl...

I see three major mistakes that get made all the time among Nonprofit leaders when they're engaging decisionmakers. These mistakes will invariably cost you influence and results, especially funding results. Now more than ever, especially in this environment, you need both your existing funders and potential funders to be investing in your work at the highest level. But lately, when you go to talk to elected officials or government agency people or foundations, a lot of times you hear t...

What I suspect is true for you is what I'm hearing from a lot of my clients – there's just too much noise in the world. And more and more, we want to be able to focus on the essentials of what's going to work. When we're talking advocacy, there are two essential ingredients. If you don't have those two fully dialed in, your results are going to be disappointing. You'll keep finding yourself in that place where the decisionmaker doesn't fully get what you do. And because th...

At the beginning of this Thanksgiving week. I wanted to take just a few minutes to share with you my five greatest sources of gratitude right now, and a little bit about why they’re so significant. We're living in a time when it feels really hard to operate from a place of gratitude. There's a lot going on that is just not good for humans. And it's hard. Nonprofit leaders in particular are feeling super stressed and under attack in a lot of ways, and we're watching attacks on members of our com...

I want to tackle a thing that we all come in contact with on a regular basis. My clients tell me it's one of the most unsettling things that can happen in a meeting with a decisionmaker. And that's when they throw you some kind of curve ball. Maybe it's a question. Maybe it's a totally out there statement and you don't know what to do with it. It's happened to all of us probably more than once. So you know what I'm talking about. When that happens, you're caught a little b...

I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling a lot more optimistic than I was a week ago. In spite of daily news that can feel pretty daunting, I think we just got a lot of new information out of this past week's elections that give us a ton of reasons for optimism. And I want to share those with you. A number of my clients have said to me in the last few days, give us a reason for optimism. How are you feeling about this? And each time I've had this conversation, I've gotten clearer about exactly w...

There is nothing more exciting than talking with a money or policy decisionmaker who's all in on the conversation. They're leaning in, they're asking good questions. Their gears are turning as they think about how you can work together. That's awesome when that happens. And then, there are the times where you've got the opposite. They're not engaged. Their body language and their relative silence tell you so. They're listening politely enough, but it feels like they're just waiting for you ...

It is no secret that engagement is the key to influence. It’s one of the biggest themes of my work with my clients. We also focus on how and why information and data are not engaging on their own. We know great messaging is essential, but there's another piece. The biggest secret to engagement – and therefore the secret to having your message land with impact – is you. You can have fantastic core messaging and still mess up the engagement piece. And when that happens, when the messaging is goo...

I'm super energized to have this conversation on the heels of the massive No Kings protests of October 18th. The greatest mass mobilization to date against authoritarianism in this country. At the same time, I also understand that it’s really easy to feel overwhelmed with all of the bad things coming at us out of this administration. And how easy it is to feel like the actions of one person can't make that much of a difference. But in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. I was fortu...

There's a huge problem happening all over the Nonprofit universe and beyond right now, and that's fundamentally the problem of fear. In fairness, it's a pretty scary time. And fear is not unfounded for sure. There are genuine threats facing Nonprofits individually and the sector more broadly. And there are a lot of decisionmakers in all different roles who are also feeling under threat in one way or another. The thing we often don't take into account is that a lot of decisionmakers are ...

One of the sources of constant frustration that I hear from Nonprofit leaders is about not having the advocacy results they want. If that's you, you're in good company. A lot of Nonprofit leaders experience this problem. The other reality is that Nonprofit leaders are really busy. Too busy to spend your time on anything that isn't going to produce a clear, tangible result. So what we all need is to find the fastest, most effective way to get to the advocacy results we want. What's the shortest...

I want to share with you a story of something that happened to me that I think carries some powerful lessons for how we approach not just advocacy, but pretty much everything. But those lessons are only part of point. When you listen to this story, you’ll discover how storytelling can be one of the most effective tools for engaging others. But that engagement is not a given. There’s a way to tell a story that pulls the listener in and has them totally immersed in the story. And there’s a way t...

On a scale of 1 to 10, how comfortable are you in saying out loud that your organization's work and the results that you get are the best? The best. If you said 10, congratulations. You are in great shape on that front. But if your response was an 8 or below. Or if you didn't even answer, but instead said, well, “best” compared to what, or to whom? Or some other equivocation, then there are some questions to explore. If you're a Nonprofit leader who strives for excellence and who's looking to...