I remember sitting in my office shortly after starting as the Executive Director of a small nonprofit and just staring at the phone…waiting for it to ring. Waiting for someone to call and tell me what I was supposed to do first. I was 31. I had left the corporate world after having my second baby and was loving being a stay at home mom. After about 6 months at home I saw an ad in the local paper for a part-time Executive Director of the local historical society. Perfect! Part-time would be ideal for our family! (are you laughing yet at the whole “part-time Executive Director” part?) I found myself suddenly responsible for three historic museums, 300 volunteers, two large events that brought thousands of people to town, and a small staff. My BA in Public History did not include course work on running a nonprofit (more about why we need to include that later on…). I had never seen an organizational budget, or written a grant, or even been on the board of a nonprofit.
I was lucky. There was a nonprofit resource center in the next town over, at the community college. This is where I meant my mentor. She would become not only someone I would turn to for knowledge, but a dear friend. Even to this day. They hosted discussion circles for “Executive Directors only”. Safe spaces where we could be vulnerable, lay it all out on the table, ask questions like “What is a 990?” or “Do you cry every day too?” (just kidding….kind of). There was coffee. And bagels. And loads of information. I lived for those meetings. We talked about EVERYTHING. I was a sponge.
About three years later I accepted a full time Executive Director position. (yes, part-time is actually full-time, and well….full-time is 24/7) Soon after, funding for the nonprofit resource center was eliminated and it all disappeared. The meetings. The safe space. Even the bagel place went out of business. (sigh) It was up to us now to create time and space to continue these conversations. We did okay for a little while. But then, as I am sure you can imagine, life happened and we, as full-time Executive Directors, slowly let this “extra” meeting slide.
I now found myself as the only staff person of a nonprofit with a budget of $500,000/year, that was also running an $83,000 deficit and spending a multi-year grant a year ahead of itself. I needed to figure out how to fundraise, and I needed to be good at it. I also needed to wear the hats of marketing director, social media manager, website administrator, travel agent, event planner, volunteer coordinator… (you get the picture). I was learning to fly the plane, while it was in the air, on fire, with no landing gear or parachute. I immediately started looking online for resources. They were few and far between, or required expensive memberships that my nonprofit couldn’t afford. I checked out all the books I could from my local library and spend all my free time (so sure that was usually from 1 a.m to 3 a.m.) soaking up as much as I could.
This is why I decided to start this blog/website. I now work as someone who gets to give away the money, instead of raise it. I talk to EDs every day that are experiencing the same struggles that I did for 10 years. Running nonprofits by themselves. Wearing all the hats. Running out of hours in their day. Existing in survival mode. Especially this year. #2020
I hope to share with you what I learned through my successes, and my failures. I am going to share resources that I still turn to today; favorite blogs, favorite websites, favorite books, people to follow on social media, and more. I hope to create a safe space. Maybe we can all meet for coffee and bagels one day in a dimly lit conference room and share our journeys.
Have a question, or a topic you would like covered? Drop me an email! I would love to hear from you!
FUNdED 