Mindset Shifts That Grow Nonprofits into Fundraising Powerhouses with Hannah Inman | Episode 91

speaker-0: Great parks and healthy landscapes are the products of strong leadership. This show is dedicated to helping you become that leader. This is the Parks and Restoration podcast. We're on a mission to help you leave a legacy of healthy ecosystems, quality parks, and future generations of people who care about the natural world. Find show notes, links, and other information on our website, parksandrestoration.com. And now, let's get to today's episode. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Parks and Restoration podcast. I am your host Chris Lee and I am joined today by Hannah Inman from the Great Outdoors Foundation and I am looking forward to having this discussion. ⁓ There's a personal aspect to it in that I'm working a lot with our local foundation and so I can't wait to pick Hannah's brain about how we can do that better. But I know a lot of conservation departments, a lot of parks departments. A lot of us that work in the parks and conservation field have foundations or friends group that supports us. And we're going to have a discussion on how that could go better for us. So Hannah, welcome to the show.

speaker-1: Thank you. so excited to be here and I'm excited that we're finally getting to do this. I know we've talked about this for a while, but I'm excited about today's discussion.

speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. Been kind of a long time coming. So Great Outdoors Foundation, you guys have turned this thing into this monstrosity of a foundation. And I've somewhat followed it with great interest and talked to folks on previous episodes of the show that have had some sort of involvement with the foundation in some way or with Polk County. So just give me the arc of Great Outdoors Foundation. what it was, how it came to be, and then leading into what it is now.

speaker-1: Yeah, it's been a journey for sure. One that started well before I came on board. But in this June, the Great Outdoors Foundation will be 31 years old. And for the first 20 years, it really was volunteer led. And it started out as sort of a friends program for Polk County Conservation and really modeled somewhat after Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, right? To have sort of that local ⁓ Nonprofit that is lockstep with County Conservation to be able to do land acquisition as needed, fund some programs, things like that. And so for the first 20 years, volunteer led very dedicated volunteers that have done some great things. A couple years before I came on, the Great Outdoors Foundation board got a little bit more aggressive and helped ⁓ with the Polk County Conservation Bond. So this was our first bond for Polk County Conservation. I believe it was somewhere around 50 million. And with that, started to see what could happen if we looked at conservation more from a regional perspective. ⁓ Funding at that point was going more regional, whether it was federal or ⁓ philanthropy. And so the board decided it was time to hire. a executive director. And so at the time I had been with Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, but at the time I was doing some consulting and I took it on contract for the first two years because I was really excited about the vision of the board, but sometimes you know vision and execution doesn't match up. And so I started working ⁓ on contract for the first two years. And the board for Great Outdoors Foundation is just amazing and has continued that tradition to this day. ⁓ Quickly found out that my position was being financed between ⁓ a combination of events and firewood sales at the local campgrounds. And everyone that does events knows that events are very labor intensive for the economic impact. And so at that point, worked with Polk County Conservation to understand really what their funding needs were and started to sort of build out. And because of the bond, there were a lot of capital projects that were happening. And capital projects ⁓ are intense. They're very much labor intensive, but produce big results. But a lot of times when you have a capital investment, your operational or program dollars kind of decline, and then they rebound in the long term, right? Because people are giving their large donations to the capital project, but then they're invested in the project. So we worked out a deal with Polk County Conservation at the time, where it was a flat fee for doing some of the fundraising on the capital projects as well as the program. That gave us the ability to start putting almost everything that I was doing straight back to Polk County Conservation because our operational budget was pretty much, which at that time was less than $100,000, right? Our operational budget was pretty much covered by that ⁓ agreement that we had. And that worked really well. And as we did more and more capital projects and large program fundraising, it allowed to build ⁓ the tent that was supporting Polk County Conservation and also The naturalists, they do such a great job there. They have a lot of really ⁓ great relationships within the community. And so we were able to start building the capacity. ⁓ In 2017, around that time, there was something that was going around about doing sort of a regional water trails. initiative there had been the area and the Des Moines area Metropolitan Planning Organization had done an engineering study about what was feasible and possible to do this water trail project that eventually became ICON water trails. But at the time, everyone in our world knows that there's only a few conservation donors, right? And so we feel protective over them. And our board wanted to make sure that they had a great experience with this and that they were treated with sort of the care and respect that we offer to our donors. And the majority of these projects were on, all the projects were on public land, but a lot of them were on Polk County land. And a lot of it would have accelerated some of Polk County conservation's water quality work and recreation work. So our board decided that we would be the fiscal sponsor for what would become Icon Water Trails because it was such a large benefit, not only for conservation and water quality and recreation, but for Polk County conservation specifically. And we incubated that within the Great Outdoors Foundation, knowing that eventually it would become its own 501C3. We've raised over $100 million for that project. To date, the last... ⁓ We're having two of the low head dams being mitigated right now. It should be open in the spring of 2027. The Raccoon River will be fully open. We still have Center Street to do. And Polk County Conservation is ⁓ managing a lot of those projects. ⁓ So that sort of ⁓ took on a life of its own. ⁓ But our board came back to water quality is such an important part about what we do. and that there was sort of this, we have a lot of great partners doing a lot of great work, but there were pretty significant barriers and challenges in really de-siloing and trying to do ⁓ like a larger vision and plan. And so we spent two years just going and talking to all those people that are in charge of water quality, whether it be with their for-profit, their nonprofit or their government entity and just listening. And at that time, we found that there was really a barrier in the delivery mechanism of conservation and there were a lot of burden and red tape for funding. And especially with the restrictions on funding, there oftentimes was a gap where really great projects could get done, but because of restrictions of what could or could not be sent, these wonderful projects were just staying on the shelf. And so at that time, we have always had a really good relationship with corporate funders. We launched something called the Conservation Acceleration Fund. And what we did with that is we take investment from our corporate partners and they all have sort of their specific things that might be nitrogen reduction, it might be quality of life, all of those different things, it might be water replenishment. And then we go out to our partners whether it's Polk County or upstream Story County or whomever, and we take their best water quality projects and we bundle those together and match them with that corporate investment. And a lot of times they have federal, state, local dollars attached, but maybe there's 200, $300,000 missing to get it over ⁓ the line, especially when you talk about federal funding, they need local match. Sometimes that local match is really hard to obtain. ⁓ has been super successful. We've been doing that for a couple of years now. ⁓ We have deployed nine million from the conservation fund and that has realized $44 million total in leveraged funds. And we've been able to sequester ⁓ tons of nitrogen ⁓ and sort of fast forward some of the quality of life projects here in Polk County and up and downstream. So we continue to work on that, ⁓ but we still have this huge partnership with Polk County Conservation that's incredibly important to us. We, the Great Outdoors Foundation still is the fiscal sponsor with all the capital projects, but that can cause, ⁓ you know, your 990s to really inflate one year and then really go down. And sometimes when you do those large capital, projects, depending on how much money you raise and how much like federal or state dollars you have in it, you know, necessitates an audit, right, which can be very expensive. It can be up to $50,000 a year. And so we were having some problems getting the programming piece separate from the capital piece. And so just recently we launched a separate 501 C three for Polk County just for the programming piece. ⁓ and hired a staff member to run that from the Great Outdoors Foundation. From the back end, are still managing the financials, the HR, the payroll, the fiscal management, insurance, all of that. But they are working with Polk County Conservation specifically on programming. And then we are still the fiscal sponsors of those large capital projects, which allows for a more simplistic, streamlined, and less expensive nonprofit where more of the funding will go straight to programming. Wow. Yeah, that's a lot. And so that last piece has been about the last 10 years.

speaker-0: Holy smokes. Yeah, yeah. Lots of questions here. ⁓ So specifically on the last 10 years. ⁓ who's on the board and I necessarily need names, like what industries or organizations do they represent? And then how much longevity have you had with board members?

speaker-1: Yeah, so we have our board has ⁓ so are we you can do serve three three year terms. So you have nine years and then you have to turn off the board, right? We don't have a lot of turnover on our board. ⁓ So we still ⁓ I think this year we had one of the original board members that hired me. just termed off the board, right? Because I've been there for almost 10 years now. And so it's a variety. We have ⁓ real estate development executives. We have ⁓ state workforce development, ⁓ deputy director. We have ⁓ corporations, international corporations that are headquartered in the Des Moines area, they're CEOs. ⁓ So it's really a lawyer ⁓ and we also have some financial professionals too. And so we have a mix of ⁓ local corporations and national corporations, but all sort of have an interest here in Iowa.

speaker-0: So what, what was the, the catalyst where, where the, foundation went from, you know, the, the local support group that sells firewood in the parks to, ⁓ deciding, okay, we're, we're going to hire a full-time person. ⁓ and obviously that's going to require some sustaining funds. You said for a while it was sustained through firewood sales and events, ⁓ which I think anybody that works with the foundation understands how that goes. Well, I'd literally just had our local. Foundation's banquet this last weekend and But then so I mean what was the catalyst that that? Suddenly turned it from that into this this accelerating and I get ten years is you know that didn't happen overnight right, but Yeah, at some point there had to have been a Critical mass that was that was met or some sort of switch that was flipped where okay the way we're doing things needs to accelerate or it needs to change. need to, we need to step up. How and, and, and I guess how did that happen?

speaker-1: Yeah, I think there's three critical junctures that sort of, you know, built on top of each other that made that happen. And I think the first was the board's decision to even hire a full-time person. And in some ways, I think that is the scariest place to start, right? ⁓ Because it's volunteer-led, you don't have a lot of expenses, but you also don't have a lot of funds being raised, right? And... you need someone, the board at that time really felt like there would be a huge benefit that if you had someone whose job that they woke up every day thinking about, great outdoors foundation and how they could raise more funds for Polk County Conservation, that the rest would take care of itself. And, you know, at that time it was a lot of business executives from the area that were on the board and they had seen that play out, right? And so, And so that was that first decision. And it was like, you know, we're doing this much as volunteers, but we all have day jobs. We all have families. We're not thinking about it the minute we wake up. So let's take that risk and figure it out, you know, and see what we can do. And ⁓ I think the other thing that the Great Outdoors Foundation had in its favor, which not all nonprofits at that first juncture have, and this is what caused us to go to the second ⁓ sort of level, is our job was not to provide programming, right? Polk County Conservation was already providing amazing programming whether or not someone from the Great Outdoors Foundation was there. So a lot of nonprofits are hiring one person that's supposed to be great at operations, great at fundraising, and great at program development and deployment, right? ⁓ It's unrealistic. I talk about this all the time when I'm talking with other nonprofits and with nonprofit boards. It's unrealistic to expect that you're gonna have one person that flawlessly or successfully executes those three things. So you need to decide what's most important, right? And so really my job was just to go out and fundraise at that point, right? And I already had such a great ⁓ network of people that believed so passionately about what Polk County Conservation does. And I think any County Conservation Board probably has that, right? Because you just have wonderful people, whether it's the naturalists, the educators, or those that are managing parks, they're just wonderful people. And we're all the beneficiaries of that great work, right? So. my whole thing was just go out and fundraise, right? And so that made it really easy to execute successfully because of those two things. So then it kind of naturally builds. I think that the second inflection point was when the board decided to take on fiscal sponsorship of what ultimately would become icon water trails. And this was a joint decision with Polk County Conservation in the sense of it changed our contractual agreement at that time. And I think the leadership at Polk County Conservation believed that this was necessary in improvement of water quality and access to outdoor recreation, they were good with this and that ultimately would benefit them. But I think our board recognized that one, it was important to take this on to continue to be a good steward to our existing donors and to Polk County Conservation. But if it was successful in measured ⁓ success, it would elevate the profile of what Polk County Conservation does and the importance of using recreation as a catalyst for conservation. And so I think that was a huge inflection point. I think the third one that more recently happened was the the launching of the Conservation Acceleration Fund and the board saying we understand that conservation and water quality are critical to the state and to the region. There are a lot of great people doing some work, great work. There are ways that we can remove barriers and accelerate the pace of those partners that are doing great work. ⁓ And so sort of taking that different mindset to what we are already doing. ⁓ And I would say that ⁓ there's always a little bit more risk reward scenarios ⁓ that business ⁓ executives are a little bit more willing to take on or to consider. And ⁓ we've done that in each of those scenarios. And the board has done great in giving us guardrails, right? And also we have built in a lot of internal ⁓ trigger points. So once our reserves get to this much, then we feel comfortable taking on this risk.

speaker-0: Hmm. Sure. Okay. So you said a word I was going to dig into. So mindset, sounds like along the way or, or the, the, there was a change in mindset somewhere in there from where an organization that serves as a pass through for money to the entity that we support, you know, and so like we exist to support Polk County conservation. And so we'll take some tax deferred donations. People get the tax breaks by writing us a check and then 100 % of the dollars that they give to us, we turn around and we hand it to this organization. We simply exist as this pass through, somewhere in there for, uh, and correct me if I'm wrong, but somewhere in there for a, a foundation or any sort of nonprofit to, to shift from just kind of a friend's group or a support group to an actual entity, uh, you know, like an operating business type entity, there has to be a business mindset shift of, okay, If we bring in a thousand dollars, there's only a percentage of that that we can then pass through to the two mission because we have to exist. Like we have costs that we have to cover. therefore a particular percentage, an admin percentage has to come off the top or whatever. And you do that at a large enough scale. Suddenly you can afford to hire a person whose sole job is to go out and find more money. And when you've got somebody who can spend eight, I bet it wasn't eight hours a day when you were first hired on. remember listening to a podcast where you're talking about sending emails at three o'clock in the morning. and yes, you're, right. But so to have that kind of person that's got that kind of passion, because those people do exist, right? There are a lot of us in, this line of work ⁓ to have them then. So now this becomes like a self-growing snowball. Yeah. Even though the, the pure dollars that are coming in aren't the same dollars that are going out. There's just a whole bunch more dollars coming in. And now you get the dual benefit of the foundation. The entity is growing and increasing its capacity to do what it exists to do. But then the beneficiary is getting, you know, just more dollars, even though it's still only a percentage of the total dollars that are coming in. And so it's a mindset shift from, you know, we're just as pass through to, we're a We're an entity, we're functioning as a business here and we have to think that way.

speaker-1: Yeah, Chris, I we could talk for days about this. Like I get really passionate about this because ⁓ I think that there is a mindset shift that needs to happen in philanthropy and in nonprofits. ⁓ Because when nonprofits started, right, it's just to fill those community needs. Well, as we have started to privatize more and more government services, And we're seeing a retrenchment of government funds at all levels, right? Not saying that's right or wrong, that's just the existence of the reality that we live in. For-profit businesses are taking on the pieces that are profitable, right? And so what's left is this gap of services. And so, ⁓ especially in the conservation world, we have philanthropy stepping in and saying, this is still really important to are to us, to our quality of life, right? You think of the usual suspects that are supporting, you know, the Athene North Shore at Easter Lake or Icon water trails. have ⁓ corporations saying, is important to my employees, our city, to our quality of life. And so philanthropy is stepping in to do that, right? However, and Sally Dix from Bravo, which is ⁓ the regional ⁓ arts ⁓ and culture nonprofit here in central Iowa, she said it best on a panel that ⁓ I was watching. She said, a 501c theory nonprofit is a tax status, not a business plan. And so as we're privatizing some of these services and As the level of what philanthropy and nonprofits of what we're providing grows, the sophistication of what we're delivering from a business thing, a business practice is growing. We have to operate like a business. I have to have the sustainability of our staff, of our programming and the benefits and the impacts. Otherwise I wouldn't be a good CEO. And you know, I used to take a lot of pride in that 98 % of the gifts that were coming, 98 % of every dollar that was coming in was being delivered to the end user, right? But as we grew to having to provide additional services, not only for impacts, but now we're providing backend support for other nonprofits, we're having to invest that into our operations, right? And there's not a lot of grant opportunities. for operations, right? Everybody wants, no one wants to pay people, but that's what makes these programs happen, are the people, right? And so ⁓ I remember I was getting ready to sign a large gift agreement with a corporation, probably the biggest one we had ever done. And he had looked at our financials and he looked at the corporate partner that we were looking. working with had looked at our financials, looked at our 990, and he's like, I want this to be a long-term partnership. And I think that you have the ability, the Great Outdoors Foundation has the ability to deliver on the water quality that we want to see, the local impact. What concerns me is you're not investing in your infrastructure to be able to successfully scale to what we need to solve these issues. I'm worried that you're not going to have the sustainability. And at the same time, I was hearing some similar, not necessarily that blunt from my board, but the board having some of those questions. Because I was taking pride in doing all of that, but I'm also killing my staff. And I'm also maybe leaving us open for liability by not properly staffing up. And anyone that, and I think this is also a misconception. Nonprofit accounting is very difficult, right? You have your operational money, but you also have a lot of restricted funds. And a lot of times your restricted funds far outweigh your operational funds. So you can't touch those for operational needs. Those are all going straight to programming. But you have to be able to administer those funds from all the stuff that no one wants to talk about, legal, auditing, financial, et cetera. And we try to operate at a high level where our auditors, it should be really clean. Everything should be, we try to operate to a really high level of excellence for our financials, our auditing, and our legal. And that takes the people to do the steps to adhere to the high standard that our auditors or gap accounting needs. And so that was a huge change in the great outdoors mind shift that came from both the board and a potential investor. And now we've been, you know, that person has been a partner of ours now for three years and we're getting ready to launch another huge project together. I'm, I appreciate the business world coming in and trying to, ⁓ you know, try to steer philanthropy into this mindset of we're gonna go out and do bake sales to know you're providing a really critical societal impact and you need to treat this like a business.

speaker-0: Yeah. And I think that's what I'm seeing in the, foundations and the nonprofits that really accelerate. That's the biggest change that I see is that mindset shift from, you know, we're just, we're a fundraising entity. we were a bunch of volunteers, ⁓ to know this, this is a business and it exists to serve a societal purpose. And there is costs to operating this business, to operating this entity. And when that changes and. And I've also seen it, you get some pushback from, from some donors, right? Like, if I hand you X number of dollars, want X number of dollars going towards the mission deliverable that you say you're going to deliver it to. But just like you said, anybody that's in business or understands business operations, they're going to look at it the other way of, if, if, if, if this is what I can get, if I get X number of dollars today, can I get two X in the future by. taking some and investing in my infrastructure, my organizational infrastructure to grow this entity and then everybody's going to win. And it's going to be more impact for the dollars that you're giving me now into the future. And so it's just a, it's it's a big change for sure. Ready to take your leadership to the next level? Join the next level leadership community at parks and restoration.com. You'll get practical leadership insights and exclusive invitations to live meetups and trainings. Be part of the movement we're creating. Join the next level leadership community at parksandrestoration.com. So when you started out, your, your main job was, was fundraising. ⁓ and, and this I feel is, is kind of the, where the trajectory of the great outdoors foundation changes. They, hired up, they hired a person. So now they've got a full-time person whose sole job is to just grow this entity. Like, turn this thing into something incredible. ⁓ when you're going out and fundraising, what, what was the request? ⁓ you know, like, like what's the conversation with the potential donors of, ⁓ you know, w was it still on, on programs and capital improvements and things like that? Or were you having the conversations like what you just said with this, this corporate partner of, look, we are, we are also scaling this organization. And part of your contribution is going to contribute to scaling this organization. How did those conversations go? Because I could see that going a couple of different ways, depending on who it is you're talking to some, some. Potential donors, they just want to see their money go towards a particular project or, know, they want to go to summer camps or, know, some thing that the conservation department is doing. And, that's all they really care about. ⁓ but then others, like you say, with this corporate partner, they're going to have an interest in seeing this organization grow and having an opportunity to, all right, I donate today, but when I'm donating in five years from now, I know that even though my donation may be the same level, it's probably five X in the impact.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. So there's a few things that happened. I I like, it's, I hardly went out ever went out and just like made an ask for a specific project. Right. It was always a conversation and a relationship. Right. And so I came in when we were starting the Jester Park Nature Center fundraising campaign. And so those conversations were more What's your legacy? What's important? What needs to happen? And then, you know, we'd get the Jester Park gift and I'd go back and talk to him and say, look what you did with your impact. This is what we want to do next. This is what the Great Outdoors Foundation wants to do. ⁓ And so it's more of an alignment of common values that allows us to grow. I would also say that ⁓ by necessity, I prioritized those conversations as opposed to someone that's just gonna give to a scholarship fund because there was only one of me and there was a vast amount of need. So the people that were giving some of the larger gifts or more transformational gifts out of necessity of only having X amount of time, I started with those conversations. But it's always been, it's not, it's never like a sales job, right? It's like, we both really care about recreation, about ⁓ conservation. We have joint goals of what we want to see happening. So what does that look like? And here's what I'm thinking, what do you think about that? And so a lot of times it's just continuing what they want to do with their legacy. ⁓ And so that's, or what they want to see for their employees. And so, I think it was a happy accident because I just didn't have enough time to go to everyone. ⁓ And I had a really great board ⁓ that were willing to make some of those asks too with the relationships that they had, right? It wasn't just Hannah Inman, it was our board. was, you know, a lot of times a gift would show up because a naturalist did something on a field trip and, you know, everyone there was amazed by it and sent. money in and so then it's a different conversation, right? Because they saw the magic of what was happening. So we don't really look at it so much as like, okay, we need to make X amount of quote unquote sales. We're really talking about it as relationships and what people want to accomplish with what they're hard earned money, ⁓ what they want to do with their hard earned money.

speaker-0: Yeah. So that's a critical distinction and a key takeaway I would want listeners to pick up on is oftentimes we look at this from a transactional perspective as we have to raise money, which means we need to go out and ask for money and. I would bet that most of us in this line of work absolutely loathe that idea of going out and asking for money. Like we into parks and conservation because we didn't want to do sales. We could have made a whole lot more money selling houses or cars for crying out loud, nobody's in this line of work because they wanted to be a realtor or a car salesman. We wanted to go into this because we wanted to make an impact. so it's building that relationship and it's finding that alignment. of how do our values and what we and our mission align with yours. And now here's an opportunity and it's identifying those more so than just, will you give us some money?

speaker-1: Yeah, and I've had a chance to train a lot of really great fundraisers and most of those people were not natural fundraisers. know, that's exactly like they were going to load that. But once people realize every, you know, most corporations have marketing and nonprofit budgets, they have money that they need to give away. So when you're talking from that frame, it's like, you just want to align what you're doing with what they the impact they want to have in the community, they have the money to give. So it's not like you're prying money out of their hands. They have that budget, right? And once people realize that it gets a lot less scary, but also like, especially for, you know, volunteer coordinators or anything like that. People love the job that you're doing. They love the service that you're providing. When you can talk about, gosh, if we got this this van and this trailer and it would allow us to do XYZ, then it starts to be like they're seeing the possibility of being able to help you and help the community see more of what you do. And so they believe they're investing in you and what you're doing and they love it, right? Otherwise they wouldn't be out there with you. Otherwise they wouldn't be participating. And so It's not this scary sales thing where you're prying this money. You're just helping people feel like they're a part of it and making an impact.

speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. You're giving them an opportunity. Yeah. So, ⁓ I wanted to, to touch on these, these corporate partnerships. let's say, ⁓ so we changed the mindset a little bit, into this kind of this business mindset and, ⁓ we want to go and find them by we, mean, you know, a local foundation or something like that. And let's say there's some, some corporate entities, ⁓ in, the community.

speaker-1: Exactly.

speaker-0: but you don't already know them, know, let's say you don't have a pre-existing relationship with them. How does one even start there? Like how do you even open that conversation?

speaker-1: Yeah, I mean, I think there's a couple different ways to do this. Like I love people, right? And I love, I'm curious about people and what they're doing and things like that. So a lot of times, you know, it's doing some of that at the beginning, it's doing some of that local networking, like going to the local Rotary, going to some of those local parts and just starting to meet with people, having coffee, like tell me about what you do, asking them about their... you know, their businesses or their, you know, interests. ⁓ That's really helpful. Going to things that are joint alignments, like your, you know, your annual dinner that you had, right, your gala, things like that. Going to other ⁓ events that, you know, you might have some of the same people and talking to people, you know, and being curious about people. And I would never... A lot of our long-term donors never came because I was like, I really want that person because I know that it was more of this, let's get to know each other. I'm curious about what you're doing or asking for advice, right? Like if you, you know, maybe you need some marketing help, maybe you need some, you know, ⁓ organizational structure help, you know, finding those people that do that. and asking their advice on situations, right? And it leads to natural conversations or using the people that are on your board or donors saying, hey, we're looking for some of these things. Do you have any friends that you go hunting with that you think would be interesting, like interested in the work that we do? Do you have anyone that's fishing or young kids that love to go to parks or cyclists or whatever? And then having those board members provide the introductions.

speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ Several really great insights on that of, again, it's relationship building, right? And, and, so this is, ⁓ often where, and I fought this early in my career. ⁓ a lot of us go into this line of work and parks conservation, cause we're not exactly people people. and, and the, before I was director, the director before me, She was adamant that I get involved in like chamber things and go to business after hours and stuff like that. And I'm like, ⁓ dear God, don't, I don't want to do that. But after a while I realized the value in that and getting to know the local business community and just getting to know the people in my community and, just the interesting people that you, that you meet and the stories that you hear. I started to see the value in that. And, and now, you know, I'm involved in all sorts of things and stay involved with our local chamber and that, you know, different community groups. Because there's immense value in that. Not, not just from a transactional perspective of I'm going to, know, I'll get to meet some CEO and their business, maybe give us some money, but just that it's connecting people with what I offer as a, conservationist, right. And as a parks person. And so if they get to know me and you know, say, what do do? Well, you know, I run starts cave nature center and we do all sorts of kids programs like, well, I, I got a couple of school-aged kids. What's camps do you offer? Well, let me me hook you up, you know, and ⁓ boom, mission accomplished. That's what we exist to do. Right. now that relationship is built and now you get mission alignment. Right. So now they believe in what it is that you're offering. ⁓ I want to invest in that kind of thing. And that's how the big things come along. I would I would bet.

speaker-1: Well, also, like Chris, they probably think you have the coolest job ever. Right. you know what I mean? There's not a lot of people that go into accounting because it's like it was their childhood dream and they really enjoyed it. Right. So then like they get to meet you and talk about it. And then, you know, they get to live vicariously through what you're doing. Right. So like you're probably like the most popular person at the breakfast. Right. They want to know. They want you to talk about what you're doing and things like that.

speaker-0: Yeah, they automatically assume you're a park ranger, a game warden, like, tell us a story about the bear. So, but yeah, I you're absolutely right. And, and so it's, it's a conversation starter. And again, you just, you're building that relationship. ⁓ so, ⁓ we could dig into that for a long time, but, I want to dig into some, some key takeaways for, ⁓ people that, that have foundations or they're involved with foundations or something like that. And so I want to approach this from three different perspectives. So let's say. ⁓ we've got some, parks or conservation people, ⁓ listening and they were looking at three different levels of maybe their friends group or their foundation, whatever it is, the nonprofit that's, that's supporting their organization, whether they're involved with. So one is say they're, just getting started. Like it doesn't exist yet, or it's, just getting its feet on the ground. ⁓ some recommendations for that. And then, ⁓ the second one is we'll be kind of started, but stagnant, you know, they're just, they, they kind of do their thing. They do their annual banquet or whatever, and it just, it just is what it is. And, ⁓ and then the third one is they're, ready to take off. And so I thought I'd pick your brain and get recommendations for each of those three, ⁓ starting with, ⁓ the nonprofit that's just getting started. All right. What would be some recommendations that you would have for maybe best practices, pitfalls to avoid, or just ways that they could hit the ground running.

speaker-1: Yeah, I think that if you're just getting started, the thing that I would look at is how can before you start or as you're starting, how can you find the most efficient way with the highest integrity to take care of the stuff that like really is super important to business operations, but isn't necessarily super important to like that other people can't replicate. So those backend services, right? ⁓ And a really good place to start is your local community foundation, right? So a lot of times they have the financial help, they have a lot of the ⁓ sort of processes and procedures, they can help you with board governance, all of that. Like your local community foundation would be the place that I would start. to help to start, and you may grow out of that at some point, or you may need additional, but it's a really good place to make sure you're laying a really solid foundation at the very beginning. So I would really utilize your ⁓ community foundation for those best practices type pieces. And there's so many different ways that they could do that. ⁓ The next thing that I would do is I would set a realistic three to five year budget, right? And so, and I would have trigger points in that. So, you know, you may think we really wanna hire a person and I want you to get very clear about what those, they can't do everything. So you need to give them one to two things to do that is the ultimate goal and metric. But maybe it's you wanna hire an ED that will help with fundraising and facilitation, right? And so once your reserves hit or once your funding hits 50 to $75,000 or 100 would probably be better because you have to pay benefits and all of that stuff too. I would, that's the trigger point to then hire someone. Right. And then in their first year, the metrics are XYZ. and I would start having those conversations about what is it ultimately that you want them to accomplish? Is it school bus scholarships? Is it camp scholarships? Is it, you know, you want to purchase XYZ or you want to do a capital project, right? And so then you go to those long-term supporters and say, It's an insider conversation. This is ultimately what we want to do. We know to get that, it's your business plan. We need to do X, Y, Z. And we've already engaged these people and you have those with your supporters and that helps you to accelerate to that point where then you're starting to bring back and in that income. But it takes any successful executive director or fundraiser probably about three years, three to five years to start having a really significant return on investment. You're hoping that they're breaking even in year two to three, but if you have that foundation, it helps it happen a lot easier. So ⁓ that's how I would approach that piece. But ultimately, what is most important is to cast the vision of what you see this organization offering to the community and the timeline and the steps that you're taking. then you share that with people and people get it, right? They understand. And so I think being very thoughtful and being willing to share that vision is really important.

speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. I, anybody that's listened to the podcast for any length of time has probably heard me say repeatedly that your vision really is your selling point. if you can lay out a compelling vision, that's what people invest in. It isn't so much the end result. It's, where you're headed. And it's that, that, compelling idea of, I'm not really sure how we're going to get there, but, but this is what we're setting our sights on. This is our moonshot.

speaker-1: Yeah, and we have these trigger, and that's the other thing, right? Like, especially when you do things like ICON water trails, right? Like, that's such a huge project that came out of nothing. And it's a long-term project, right? I think it's been in existence now for seven years of some form or another, right? Yeah. Actually eight or nine years almost, at some form or another. But for it to be fully realized is going to take probably another decade, right? To be fully realized and built out. So sharing the steps that you're gonna take to get there and what those trigger points are allows you to celebrate those successes with those that have participated in the early years, but also shows your progress to it. So if you're like, once we get our reserves to this much, then we're gonna pull the trigger on an ED. And once we get to this much, we're gonna pull the trigger on fundraiser. And then at that point, we want to launch the endowment, we want to launch the, we want to have an endowed scholarship or you know, whatever that looks like, whatever your vision strategic plan, but then you hit it, you get to send a letter and email celebrating with those that have gotten you to that point, and they're taking pride in that, right? Yeah. And so I think making people part of your journey is really, really crucial because people want to be part of it.

speaker-0: that's so good because without that communication upfront, you don't actually have anything to show necessarily on the landscape. But if you can say, look, we hit this milestone, we have X number of dollars in the bank now, this was our trigger point. So now we're moving on to this next thing. Like if people didn't know that, they're not seeing anything. They're just, ⁓ nothing's happening. Nothing's happening. But big, big things are really happening. And so it gives you something that you can show progress without actually having necessarily something. public for the world to see. you know, and then they get that value of feeling like they're an insider, which is immense value to that. Okay, let's jump to the second one then. Let's say you've got a nonprofit or a foundation that's been going for a while and it's just kind of stagnant, you know, kind of turn its wheels. And how do you, what would be your recommendations for breathing some new life into that?

speaker-1: Yeah, so I would start by listening, right? Like I would start with board members, like what are you excited about? What are you not excited about? What are you frustrated? Like I take any sort of feedback, positive or negative as a gift, because if you're lucky enough to get the negative feedback, it's probably highlighting either something you were unaware of or your blind spot, right? And so that's really helpful because it gives you a roadmap that Right? So I would start with having conversations with board members, long-term donors, and then maybe you have some long-term donors that used to give $1,000 and they're only giving $20, or you have someone that hasn't given in a few years. I would have those conversations to see what it is, right? ⁓ And then a lot of times what, and so then you know what to diagnose, right? Is it lack of vision? Is it lack of like seeing progress? Are you not addressing a need in the community that maybe they think is important? And then you have to evaluate, is that a really important community need to our mission? Those are some of the conversations you have to have. But then it's, okay, you take all that feedback, you take your vision and your thoughts, and how can you marry that into something that people can rally around, right? So is it... launching an endowment that will support these community needs? Is it launching like maybe you find out people really want, you know, a nature place, a natural playscape in this one park? Okay, let's do that. And let's, but also let's build in some other things that we need in that. Maybe you need some programming dollars. So part of your capital campaign is to seed a program that will utilize that nature playscape. Right? And so you build that into your capital budget. Maybe you need to start an endowment for a certain part. You build that into that capital budget and you let people know and it can be a named, you know, can be a named program for, you know, however many years at a certain sponsorship level or whatever, but build some of your program needs in your, or your endowment needs into your capital budget. in my ideal world, which it doesn't happen. But in my ideal world, 10 % of any capital budget would go to taking care and maintaining whatever you're building, right? ⁓ And you might not need that for 10 years. And so it's sitting and growing. But then you have it, and you're protecting people's legacy investment. And so I think that's a smart business thing to do for people. But you need to recapture and recast that vision to start to get some of that magic.

speaker-0: Hmm. Yeah, that's fantastic. Okay. Let's jump to the third one here. Uh, let's say you got a, uh, a foundation that, uh, or a nonprofit that they, they want to just take off. They want to launch, um, uh, what would be your recommendation to them? You've got motivated board members, uh, you know, maybe they have some staff, maybe they don't, but, uh, they're, they're, they're ready to, launch, uh, what would be your recommendation?

speaker-1: Yeah, think this one's a little harder because it's why haven't they launched, right? And I think that's the piece where it's sort of like choose your own adventure, right? But this is where I think leaning on consultants or leaning on the advice from others that have done what you them want to do is really important. And I see this a lot. ⁓ Like I'm a real big believer of going outside of the state of Iowa, not because I think we do everything the best in Iowa, but sometimes there's a different program offering or a different business model that could apply that hasn't been done here before. so, ⁓ and especially right now, I feel like the reality of everything is changing so dramatically and so quickly that there will be the emergence of other business models that went out or don't went out. ⁓ And so I believe in going outside of the state a little bit just to explore, just to explore of like what's working in other areas and what's not, or taking things from other industries, right? Like I love stealing things from other industries.

speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, that's, you never know. This is why I'm such a prolific reader. can see this is just a fraction of what looks behind me. ⁓ but you never know when some idea you're going to come across back. ⁓ that is so applicable to this thing that I'm stuck on. it just, it's a, it's a different, you get stuck in your own brain sometimes, you know, they say it's harder to read the, read the label from inside the jar. ⁓ and sometimes you just, you don't see what you're not seeing. And, so, yeah, getting that outside perspective, ⁓ that that's fantastic. Okay. Well, I'll close with one last question. Any major pitfalls that you would, ⁓ point out to foundations or nonprofits to, avoid, ⁓ something that maybe you see commonly across different, ⁓ nonprofit organizations out there that like, you just keep seeing happening. Like, like everybody falls in that one. ⁓ or whatever it is, any pitfalls that you'd point out.

speaker-1: You know, my answer today is probably different than what my answer would have been six months or a year ago. I think that when you take nonprofits and foundations, and then you take conservation and put it on top, we can be a little risk adverse, right? And I think that we're entering this world where things are changing so dramatically. quickly, right? Like I just talked about. So I wouldn't necessarily like, let's talk about AI, right? This is, this is like probably, you know, taking up 90 % of my thought process right now. Personally, you know, professionally, everything, right? So, you know, people are like, ⁓ AI is gonna ruin us, no one's gonna have a job. And, you know, all these things. Well, I think of like, I saw a like a time or a life magazine picture of like an architecture firm in the 40s, right? And it's like all these people at drafting tables, right? It's like a whole factory floor full of drafting tables. CAD, personal computers, things like that. ⁓ We don't have a whole floor of drafting tables, right? We have CAD now, right? And there's so many examples of that, right? Just even the personal computer and what that did. And so you're still gonna need humans, right? And you're still gonna need humans to manage the bots, right? But you're also gonna still need that person to person, business to business interaction. So there are opportunities where parts of AI actually allows a starting foundation to go to this fully functioning, amazing foundation more quickly than it would have 10 years ago or five years ago. I think about one of the most prolific ways to get alternative energies is we're going into third world nations and putting in solar because they don't have the traditional infrastructure, right? So. I think it is paying attention to those things and how you can use that in a way that gets your vision and your mission out there to the right people. And how does it eliminate some of the things that maybe you didn't need five years ago, right? So don't be afraid.

speaker-0: That's a great one. Actually, you know, I think that's a great one to end on is just don't be afraid.

speaker-1: Don't be afraid.

speaker-0: And and I mean you and the great outdoors foundation is a perfect embodiment of that of Just the the way that the the organization has has grown has expanded the things that it's doing not just on a local level now But I mean you guys are statewide, you know doing great big things and ⁓ you know mean on your website says you deployed 250 million dollars ⁓ in the last few years it says ⁓ and you know, it's just I the Happy Disrupters podcast, like just the name of that, you know, is ⁓ kind of right along that same ethos of just, you know, don't be afraid, you're going to disrupt. And that's what has to happen. I think that's good. So if somebody wanted to find out more about the Great Outdoors Foundation, or you specifically, where would you direct them?

speaker-1: Yeah, go to the Great Outdoors Foundation website. It's great outdoors foundation.org ⁓ and all of our contact information is on there. And also listen to the Happy Disruptors podcast that came from that name came from how one of our stakeholders described us. So we have taken that on and owned it and loved it. ⁓ And it's definitely part of our brand now. So

speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, and I was just on that show here not too long ago and you guys run a good show and have been listening to that in my queue. So, Anna, thank you so much. And Jenna and Theresa, thank you guys for joining us. And this will be published, I think, like I said, May 5th. So tune into that and we'll talk to you guys.

speaker-1: All right, great. Thanks guys

speaker-0: This episode was produced by the great team at Layover Productions. Please subscribe wherever you're tuning in and follow Parks and Restoration on Facebook and Instagram. You can connect with us and other outdoor leaders by joining the next level leadership community at parksandrestoration.com.