Podcast Summary: Nonprofit Mastermind Podcast

Episode: Why Revenue Still Feels Fragile After Year-End Fundraising
Host: Brooke Richie-Babbage
Date: January 13, 2026

Episode Overview

In this episode, Brooke Richie-Babbage explores a persistent challenge for nonprofit leaders: the lingering sense of financial instability even after a seemingly successful year-end fundraising campaign. She unpacks why the post-campaign “fragility” is so common, explains the underlying design problems in nonprofit revenue models, and offers practical steps leaders can take to create a more stable, repeatable, and sustainable revenue engine for their organizations.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Illusion of Stability After a Fundraising Spike

• Performance Spike vs. System:
  Year-end fundraising can feel like a major win due to the surge in energy and donations, but it often creates a false sense of momentum without true financial stability.
  • “Year-end fundraising is a performance spike, not a system. It's often a short-term win. It looks like momentum because it is…But momentum is not the same thing as stability.” (01:32)
• Sugar High Analogy:
  Brooke compares the cash infusion from a big campaign to a “sugar high,” which inevitably leads to an energy crash.
  • “It's more like a sugar high. And I have kids. I can tell you what happens after a sugar high. It's a crash.” (03:07)
• Recurring Problems:
  When the campaign is over, leaders often find themselves scrambling to replace last year’s gifts, or needing to recreate the same fundraising magic without the same end-of-year urgency.

2. Why Your Revenue Model Still Feels Fragile

• Not an Effort Problem, but a Design Problem:

  • “Your problem isn’t effort. You’re not doing anything wrong. You have a design problem…most organizations tend to be growing on top of revenue structures that were never actually designed to hold the scale they’re reaching for.” (05:14)

• Scaling On Unstable Foundations:
  Organizations often expand fundraising to higher targets without redesigning the underlying system, leading to dependence on:

  • One-time campaigns (year-end, board drives)

  • Over-reliance on the Executive Director or a single development staffer

  • Inconsistent donor stewardship

  • Feast-or-famine funding cycles

  • “They are growing on top of structures that they really perfected for a smaller budget...If I said to you, you just brought in $120,000 in December, do it again in March, deep down, you know that the whole machine might fall apart.” (07:09)

• Capital Design Deficit:
  Brooke introduces this concept as “one of the three core deficits in my stability stack framework,” highlighting the absence of an intentional, scalable infrastructure for revenue generation.

  • “You feel fragile after fundraising...because your revenue model isn’t designed to hold what you raised.” (10:42)

3. What Stability Looks Like: The “Capital Engine”

Brooke outlines four key components for a resilient, scalable revenue model:

1. Recurring Revenue

   • Monthly donors
   • Long-term pledges
   • “Recurring revenue…very, very powerful and important.” (13:01)

2. Systematized Donor Stewardship

   • Proactive, year-round engagement to retain donors
   • Emphasizes low donor retention rates in the sector as a major problem
   • “That is leaving money on the table because it is cheaper…to retain donors than to do all of the work…to bring in new donors.” (14:03)
   • “Stewardship is where the magic lives.” (14:30)

3. Clear Donor Segments

   • Tailoring communication and appeals, not treating fundraising like a generic billboard
   • “You have to talk to the right people about the right things. You cannot be talking to everybody the same way.” (16:44)

4. A Predictable Pipeline

   • Not just a list of prospects, but a real, systematized process for cultivating and converting them
   • “A predictable pipeline is about prospects plus the processes for cultivating them and moving them to invest.” (18:22)

• Memorable Framework:
  “Those are the three words I want you to remember and sort of pressure test, right? Look at your fundraising and ask yourself. Repeatable, predictable, sustainable.” (12:15)

4. Intentional Design Over Random Acts

• Remove Randomness:
  Rather than layering on more tactics or strategies, focus on designing intentional systems that reduce randomness.
  • “Really, the core takeaway here is that everything I'm talking about is about removing randomness. It's about being intentional, not throwing spaghetti against the wall and hoping it worked…” (21:25)
  • “Stability comes from intentional design. You build stability. You design stability by creating the structures that keep you stable.” (22:03)
• Key Diagnostic Question:
  “If we had to do our best quarter again, do we have what we need to do that? Do we have the messaging? Do we have the infrastructure, the people, the processes? Right. Do we have an engine?” (24:05)

5. Action Steps for Listeners

Brooke offers a three-part exercise for nonprofit leaders feeling post-campaign revenue anxiety:

a) Revenue Reality Check (24:01)

• Review the last 12 months of income by source.
• Ask: Where did most money come from? How much is repeatable? Where do you see systems vs. heroic effort?

b) Spot the Bottlenecks (25:03)

• Identify manual, unsustainable, or overly individualized fundraising tasks.
• What would disappear if you or a key person stopped leading the charge?

c) Start Mapping Your Capital Engine (25:40)

• Systematize donor follow-up and stewardship processes.
• Map donor journeys and re-engagement rhythms for lapsed donors.
• Develop a structured process for prospect cultivation and donor segmentation.

Quote:
“Whatever it is, I want you to think repeatable, predictable, sustainable, right? Make it shared, make it structural. You don't just need more money and more fuel...You need a better container.” (27:08)

6. Reassurance & Encouragement

• Normalizing the Experience:
  Brooke repeatedly reassures leaders that feeling post-campaign instability is common and not a failure of willpower or ability:
  • “You are not doing anything wrong. Right? ...That is not a reflection of your skill, it's a reflection of your design.” (28:19)
  • “Design is fixable. It's buildable, it's within your control.” (29:00)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Momentum is not the same thing as stability.” (01:47)
• “You’re trying to build financial stability on top of a foundation that wasn’t built to hold financial stability.” (10:18)
• “Fundraising from individuals—it’s not that different with foundations, right? People give from a place of shared affinity. They give from their heart and they rationalize with their head.” (16:07)
• “Stability comes from intentional design.” (22:03)
• “You don't just need more money and more fuel...you need a better container.” (27:08)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00–02:50 — Introduction: Why year-end fundraising feels fragile
• 03:00–05:30 — Explaining the “sugar high” effect and instability that follows
• 05:31–09:00 — The dangers of scaling on top of small-organization systems
• 09:00–11:30 — Capital design deficit and its symptoms
• 11:31–19:20 — Building a true revenue engine: The four pieces of the “capital engine”
• 21:25–22:05 — Removing randomness, designing for stability
• 24:01–26:30 — Practical steps: Revenue reality check, bottleneck spotting, starting the capital engine
• 28:19–29:00 — Encouragement: “Design is fixable.”

Podcast Tone

Brooke’s language is affirming, experienced, and practical. She speaks directly to nonprofit leaders, offering both empathy for their lived experience and clear-eyed, actionable advice. Her tone is reassuring: “You’re not doing anything wrong. This is normal. The problem isn’t you—it’s your system, and systems can be redesigned.”

Summary Takeaways

• Post-campaign financial fragility is a design issue, not a reflection of your leadership.
• Sustainable revenue comes from a capital engine: recurring income, systematized stewardship, clear segmentation, and a predictable pipeline.
• The shift from instability to stability is about intentional design, not just more effort or new fundraising tactics.
• Start now with a reality check, bottleneck audit, and by mapping your capital engine—building the infrastructure to go from “sugar highs” to sustained, mission-driven growth.

For deeper support and additional resources, Brooke encourages listeners to explore her programs and visit her website.