Transcript
A (0:00)
Hey you, it's Rhea Wong.
B (0:02)
If you're listening to Nonprofit Load On, I'm pretty sure that you'd love my weekly newsletter. Every Tuesday morning you get updates on the newest podcast episodes and then interspersed, we have fun special invitations for newsletter subscribers only and fundraising inspo because I know what it feels like to be in the trenches alone. On top of that, you get cute dog photos. Best of all, it is free. So what are you waiting for? Head over to riawong.com now to sign up.
C (0:26)
Foreign.
B (0:33)
Welcome to nonprofit Lowdown.
A (0:35)
I'm your host, Rhea Wong. Hey podcast listeners, it's Rhea Wong with you once again with Nonprofit Lowdown. Today my guest is Marcia Beckner. She is the founder and CEO of Culture Cares Global, which is an organization that helps mentor nonprofit CEOs and executive directors who are ready to lead with more courage, clarity and confidence. Before that, Marcia has had a long career in the nonprofit industry and has been a multi time executive director, which I find impressive because they say you only do it once, but here you are. So, Marcia, welcome to the show.
C (1:12)
Thanks, Ria. I'm happy to be here.
A (1:13)
So I'm really interested because I do think one of the things that really struck me when you and I first started talking was this concept that everything stems from a culture of trust. And so today what I really want to talk about is culture as it pertains to fundraising. Because I often think that when I see problems in fundraising, when you dig a little bit deeper, it tends to be the tip of the iceberg. It's usually a strategy problem or a staffing problem or a culture problem. Talk to me a little bit about the importance of safety and trust when thinking about building the culture of an organization.
C (1:53)
Yeah, I think it's the most important thing if you've got trust and safety on your team. Your team is more willing to take risks, to have open conversations. It's more diverse and inclusive. If a leader is able to show vulnerability and express the mistakes that they've made, it opens up the tolerance towards risk and making mistakes. As a fundraiser and as we know as a fundraiser, it's a lot of it is a fear of asking for money. It comes down to that for all kinds of reasons. But mostly we don't like to be rejected and we want it. We don't want to feel inadequate. And so when a donor, you know, we ask a donor for support, it comes down to whether they feel aligned with our mission and not necessarily with how we ask, necessarily. But what is the relationship of trust that we've built with that donor that that creates or carves a pathway to us making the ask. So fundraising is complicated because of all these, like, psychological issues around lack of trust and safety. But if a leader of a fundraising team can really emphasize the trust building and the safety building within their own team and how to build that with donors, that will take them a long way.
