221. Nonprofit Trends that Matter Right Now: Think Like a Business. - Jonathan McCoy, CFRE, Becky Endicott, CFRE and Evan Feinberg

Evan Feinberg, Stand Together Foundation, We Are For Good Podcast

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Overview

This Friday series on 8️⃣ Trends That Matter in 2022 is 🔥! This week we're diving deep into our 2nd trend: Think Like a Business. And it feels like Christmas all over again, because we're bringing back nonprofit business genius and Stand Together Foundation Exec. Dir., Evan Feinberg, to talk about why we need to think of innovative ways to create long-term value for donors in order to thrive like a profitable business.

💡LEARN (in this chat)
👆Tactical steps, mindsets, and advice for nonprofits to work more like a business
👆Why principle-based cultures are scaling fastest
👆Why it's a healthy destruction to rebuild and start something from scratch
👆Case studies of two nonprofits slaying it right now🙌

“In the for profit sector creative disruption is the name of the game. You have to think of an innovative way to create long term value for customers in order to get in business and stay in business.”

— Evan Feinberg, Executive Director, Stand Together Foundation

Episode Transcript

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Episode Overview

Thinking like a business this year tone setting (1:15)
Evan’s advice for nonprofit leaders to begin embracing this mindset (6:00)
What is holding nonprofits back today (9:00)
What sets leaders of innovative organizations apart from others (18:00)
Case study of an organization who is doing this well (21:00)
Apply for Stand Together Foundation’s Catalyst Program (30:00)
Evan’s One Good Thing: Lorenzo’s story (32:00)

Powerful quotes

“It's also about embracing failure, think about failure as failing faster forward, or failing up, we've heard this concept before. And it's really about getting your mind around failures, not the end point, failure is actually could be the beginning.” -Becky

“We think that this is a trend that everyone gets to play in, you know, everybody has a great idea, everybody can come to the table of how we can improve how we can, you know, spend less time doing things that aren't moving the needle, and focusing on the stuff that really does matter.” -Jonathan

“At our core, we're looking for what we call social entrepreneurs. They're not just organization leaders are not just agencies or nonprofits. In the traditional sense, they are those organizations that are discovering new and better ways of transforming lives.” -Evan

“In the for profit sector creative disruption is the name of the game. You have to think of an innovative way to create long term value for customers in order to get in business and stay in business.” -Evan

‘I can’t tell you how many nonprofits say, “If i just had all these resources, here is the value I could create in communities.” If you start with creating the values in communities then the resources catch up.” -Evan

“The truly transformative nonprofits, resources start flowing their way.” -Evan

“How do we create more value for the people that we serve for those problems that we're trying to solve in communities?” -Evan

“At the end of the day, the truly transformative nonprofits resources start flowing their direction.” -Evan

“When we talk about management culture, the biggest thing that sets apart the groups that we look for and work with for many others is that they seek to implement a principles based culture, rather than a rules or process based culture.” -Evan

“It has to be about how you seek and gain knowledge to make better decisions. It has to be a prince principle based thinking around, you know, sort of economic thinking how you make decisions.” -Evan

“That was the secret sauce. It was the culture of innovation that came about when they made very clear their principles and their vision. And now it's exploding.” -Evan

“When we say vision, we believe that vision is capabilities based and opportunity driven.” -Evan

“For us, vision is much richer of a concept. It's a principle for us that each of us has unique gifts and talents to contribute. The way that we can contribute the most is by fully understanding and developing those unique capabilities to create value for others.” -Evan

“Your capabilities as an organization are really just the result of the individual unique capabilities of each person that you have working for you, as long as you're unleashing them to offer them.” -Evan