← Nonprofit Nation with Julia Campbell
Nonprofit Nation with Julia Campbell
Scaling Impact Without Losing Your Roots with Angelique Albert
00:32:12
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- [00:00]
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In a world hungry for change, nonprofit impact matters more than ever. Yet every day you're asked to do more with less. Less time, fewer resources, and tools that weren't even built for the way nonprofits actually work. What if you could do more with more? That's the promise of Bloomerang, the giving platform built for purpose. Bloomerang integrates fundraising, donor and volunteer management into one intuitive platform. It connects your data to reveal real opportunity, showing you who's ready to give, when to reach out, and how to deepen every relationship. Because when your tools are built for purpose, your mission goes further. More connection, more confidence, more impact. Now that's more like it. Learn how you can do more with more@bloomerang.com that's bloomerang.com now on to the show. Hello and welcome to Nonprofit Nation. I'm your host, Julia Campbell Campbell. And I'm going to sit down with nonprofit industry experts, fundraisers, marketers, and everyone in between to get real and discuss what it takes to build that movement that you've been dreaming of. I created the Nonprofit Nation podcast to share practical wisdom and strategies to help you confidently find your voice, definitively grow your audience, and effectively build your movement. If you're a nonprofit newbie or an experienced professional who's looking to get more vis, reach more people, and create even more impact, then you're in the right place. Let's get started. Hello, this is Nonprofit Nation with your host, Julia Campbell. And I'm very excited about today's conversation around scaling impact without losing your roots. And today I'm talking with Angelique Albert, CEO of the Native Forward Scholars Fund. And Native Forward is the largest provider of direct scholarships to Native students in the United States. And Angelique is a mission driven leader with expertise in public service, philanthropy, social justice, and ensuring that Native students have the resources and support to fulfill their academic and professional aspirations. And Angelique has transformed Native Forward into the largest direct scholarship provider. And at a moment when applications are up 35%, the organization received a $50 million unrestricted gift from Mackenzie Scott. So we're going to talk about what that kind of funding means. We're going to talk about all sorts of things. Nonprofit leadership in very uncertain times. We're going to talk about how do you scale without losing your focus and your mission. But I would like to welcome you, Angelique, to the podcast.
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B
Thank you, Julia, for having me. It's nice to have Native representation and spaces in all the spaces. So thank you for adding my voice to the conversation.
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A
Thanks for being here. So You've taken Native forward from just a strong, very impactful organization to now a national force. What were some of the key inflection points along the way for you?
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B
I think it's important to. To acknowledge my predecessors. When I came to this organization, we had strong programming in place and a lot of years of commitment to a legacy of tribal sovereignty. So I think having something to support that was grounded in a legacy of civil rights Native leaders who are making a change as part of the conversation and just having that strong mission and vision to begin with. I am an mba, so coming in and bringing my expertise and years of skills in the business sector and nonprofit and philanthropic space was part of it for me. It was looking at how do we build up the strong programming. And it really came down to strategy, building infrastructure of the organization. Particularly for us, it was around marketing, fundraising, and just some other data infrastructure, software infrastructure, and stuff like that. But I think it is important to say, you know, building on the decades of work that my ancestors have done to ensure that Native people have voice and representation in places that matter. I will say that in 2020, when we received our first gift from Mackenzie Scott, you know, we had worked on building that strong infrastructure and shoring up some of those spaces that were weaker so that we were ready to receive a gift like that. You know, we. In just three years, we had about doubled our revenue at that point. That's part of it, is just making sure that we're doing our part to make sure that we can receive those gifts and always looking at what our shortcomings are. With that first gift, we were able to not just provide additional scholarships because that's our core competency and what we're always focused on, but we were able to build new scholarship programs, we were able to purchase a building. We were able to create an investment fund that would contribute to the continuing strategy, work and growth fund that we're, you know, our growth projection that we're working on. So. So that first gift we continue to use today. So it's just making sure that we had a strong strategy to be able to implement that and then ultimately receive the $50 million gift in December of this last year.
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A
So tell me about Native Forward and the work that you do there, sort of how you came to work there and what your strategy has been to really grow the organization.
- [06:15]
B
Well, for me, I was serving my community on my reservation, Flathead Indian Reservation in Northwest Montana. I grew up on the reservation, started out serving community and then just looking. Addressing kind of the needs of Our community. And I think it boils down to opportunity and wanting to create opportunity. So I went into the philanthropic space for a while. And then found my true passion in doing the work. So nonprofit space is what truly speaks to me. Because I get to be a part of creating that change. But Native Forward has been around for almost 56 years. This October and started on the vision of ensuring that Native people have a high quality education, have access to that education. That's something that has not always been afforded to Native people. And for me in particular, access to education is personal. My grandfather and grandmothers, they were not afforded. They weren't legally able to access the education. They were subjected to extermination, termination and assimilation policies from the federal government that required them to go to what were called boarding schools. And they were institutions where they did not get access to education. And so for me, it's a privilege that I get access to higher education. And that's critically important so that us. So that we as Native people can be the ones who have voice in policy. Because as Native people, we fall under the federal laws. So it's important that we have voice. That we're educated as lawyers and we're educated as educators. And can be a part of those conversations and transforming those policies so that we're no longer subjected to them, but that we can have voice and help draft them. And we're part of that decision making process. So we were started at the beginning of the self determination era. So that is what Native Forward is about. It's about empowering Native scholars so that they can go out and be in spaces where their voice can make a difference. And been doing the work for the past 56 years. We've been able to fund over 350 million in scholarships. And over 22,000 Native scholars have been empowered.
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A
Incredible. So you must have a lot of great stories, a lot of great stories about impact. How do you feel like how in other ways, systems are falling short and not serving Native students specifically.
- [09:12]
B
That is the history. I think that there are a handful of institutions that are doing it well. But I think it's important to be inclusive when it comes to education. And making sure that there are culturally congruent curriculum. That institutions of higher education have Native professors on campus campuses, as well as curriculum that they have Native support systems specifically for their success. So that they have. And the number one thing that our students. The number one barrier for our students is affordability. That has been the number one barrier. It still is the biggest barrier. We did a research project Just a couple of years ago that really looked at native higher education and what our students are going to, going through. And we found that affordability is the number one issue. But housing and food insecurity is still the biggest issues for us when you look at the average unmet need of our scholars. So this is after FAFSA and PELS is $26,000 per student per year. And the average income of our students is about $35,000. So there's a bridge here that we're still needing to bridge that gap for our students. And so I would say that the affordability is still the biggest barrier. But when we look at institutions who are helping support our scholars, they are providing support, other supports as well as scholarships. So scholarships tend to be the number one need for our students. But also I would say in today's landscape, how we're falling short is with on institutions where students were typically getting supports, those supports are no longer available. So that is funding. But also those support systems that were on campuses, the tutoring and the DEI departments that are now dismantled and to persist. A lot of our students are first generation college going students. They just need a little extra support. So we have seen students such an increase in the number of applicants and the number of calls that we get for even supports, access to tutors, access to mentors. And so we've seen in the past, a little over a year, just a massive increase. So I do feel that we're falling short in supporting our Native scholars. I will say also at a time that as native people, we are in crisis when it comes to higher education. Since 2013, we've had a 45% decrease in college going attendance. Those numbers are astronomical, astronomical. No other demographic can say that. So at the same time that the overall college attendance is decreasing, then the access and the affordability is also going away. So I'm concerned, you know, we need to be doing more to support our native scholars and address those, those issues.
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A
We know the federal government is letting us down in several millions of areas. But I do think this is a time and opportunity for philanthropy to step up. And that's why, you know, I definitely wanted to talk about the 50 million gift from Mackenzie Scott and what I love about her philosophy of grape making is it's completely unrestricted. And what went through your mind when you got that call? Like what was the process to get that?
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B
It was just, you know, they vetted us and right.
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A
They don't accept applications. They go out and look, we, we
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B
got a random, you know, email that said, hey, we'd like to get some information from you. So we give some information and it's like, hey, we would like a 15 minute call with you. And you get a call and in the call it's like, oh, we would like to give you an unrestricted gift of 20 million or 50 million. And you get in, you get this euphoric feeling or out of body feeling where you're like, did you say 15? It's like, no, I said 55. 0. $50 million. So there's a little bit of shock. I felt a sense of appreciation, but. And a sense of pride, but also a sense of responsibility to do something with the gift. And I think that it's important that we step up to the moment where our students are experiencing such. We have such an increased need for our current students. But as a native person, it's important for me to make sure that we are thinking about the next seven generations. I want to ensure that my grandchildren's grandchildren also have access to higher education. So I think that's the challenge of what to do with such a significant gift and making sure that we are one, stepping up to the moment and providing access to education to as many students as we can, while also ensuring our legacy. So we have created an endowment that we will be growing so that we can ensure our children and their children have access to higher education. The other thing that I will say about a gift like this is MacKenzie Scott is truly leading the way in philanthropy at this time. And it's the beginning of the wealth transfer. 50% of the great wealth transfer will land in the hands of women. And I do believe that women invest differently than men. She is the prime example of this. There's such a strong belief in humanity and education. And so that is one thing that gives me hope.
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A
I think that's fantastic. And I love to see that sort of. Practically speaking, what is unrestricted funding change the day to day. How does it really change things? Change the way you're thinking about programs or maybe developing new programs? Or are you thinking of just sticking with your mission? There must be so many ideas floating around. How do you kind of reel them all in and keep the operations going day to day?
- [15:28]
B
We have made the decision early on to always be mission focused, to not drift from that mission and. And our core values. So those are things that we've integrated into the day to day operations. I will say that as nonprofits, I think your viewership will. Will feel the same. We are at different points of growth. And you, you step up to that moment. And when I started and we had 4 million in revenue, we had it. We were at a different point. There was a lot more infrastructure needed. So you take that in steps. So this funding has allowed us to step up to where we were at the moment and build that infrastructure. And with that $20 million gift, continue to use that. But I will say right now we are poised to expand our impact significantly with this $50 million, where 100% of it will be going into the hands of students through the form of scholarships, through endowments or scholarships right away. So that is direct impact to the students. So that is where we're at. So each step along the way, we were able to build infrastructure slowly through grant funding and work on our growth at a smaller level. And then when we received the 20 million, we were able to scale up and really look at operating models and refining marketing to be targeted marketing and doing AB testing. So now we're to the point where, where this next growth phase is truly just getting as much money as we can into the hands of scholars. So it is true impact and scaling at a level that we can now roll out to directly impact students.
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A
How do you involve. I'm sure community is very involved in the work that you do. And that's probably why mackenzie Scott found you. I know that she really does a lot of background work to find organizations that are turned to the community and heavily invested. And it's not just like a top down model, of course, but how do you, how do you stay grounded in the community and how do you involve the community sort of in the decisions around how to spend that money?
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B
As a Native person, I was raised on my reservation. I was raised close to my cultural values. My value system is not based on maybe money, right? It's not my. And it's not based on individual growth. It's based on a community concept. So I believe in community. I believe in family. My family involves my natural environment, my plant brothers and sisters, my animal brothers and sisters. So I think it's important to know that when you come from community and you are of community, it's important that we stay grounded in that community. I will say that we have 22,000 Native scholars across the United States and we stay connected with them. They help us when we go into a tribal community, we reach out to them and they help us to connect to communities. So we work with the tribes, the tribal education departments, the tribal colleges nearby, as well as the mainstream universities and community. But also we focus our attention on what our communities need, they need to make sure that we have funding for environmental things that we work on, the preservation of our language, of our cultural ways, so we stay connected with our community in so many ways. We also have our leaders out there who are alumni, who are maybe one of the 22,000 PhDs or 2,200 PhDs or 2,000 tribal lawyers who are out there. And we rely on them to be mentors to our scholars. So we reconnect them to our students. And then they also, we involve them on doing trainings for our students of maybe writing your dissertation or how to get into grad school so that we, we may be first college going, first generation college going students, which I was. So I couldn't really rely on my parents, but we can rely on our other community members. So we do feel that the Native forward family is strong. It just makes me proud that in 1969, when our organization was started, there were only 15 native doctoral students in the United States and we funded over 2,200. At this point, there were only 38 native lawyers in the country. And we spoke to that need for ensuring that we have voice at the federal level. And that takes tribal lawyers. Now from 38, we have funded over 2,000 tribal lawyers who are out there adding voice to our community. So it is really, when you think about it, you think about these individual scholars who are doing great things. It is a cultural value that we give back to our tribal communities and support tribal communities, support tribal sovereignty, protect our collective treaty rights. So that is part of the story. And staying connected to community, you know, sometimes it is just those relationships that we have, and sometimes it's making sure that we go back to our ancestral homelands and that we connect with the land where our ancestors are buried and making sure that we, we do stay grounded. Because no matter if you say $350 million sounds like a lot of money, it's a lot of lives that are impacted.
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A
That's not. It's more than a dollar amount.
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B
It's more than a dollar amount. And then when you think of our tribal communities and there's 107,000 students out there who need access to higher education. For us, we had to turn away 10,000 native scholars this last year because we only had funding for 2000. So there's a long way to go before we are at a level where our peers are. When I think of our amazing peers out there in the industry, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, Asian Pacific Scholarship Fund, they're doing phenomenal things. You know, we're trying to elevate to the level of what they're doing as well as uncf. You know, it's like we, our students deserve a higher education the same as we all do. So I think it's important to think of it to stay grounded because there's so much work to do. And until we fund those other 10,000 native scholars, then we have work to do. You know, it's important to stay grounded, to be able to serve them.
- [22:22]
A
Oh, no, I completely agree. I think that's, it's just a wonderful, I mean, it's wonderful to see that you can hopefully be scaling it and hopefully meeting more of the need based on this gift. What is your relationship like with other funders and what do you wish that they would know about maybe unrestricted funding? Because I think that is the key piece is trusting nonprofits, trusting leaders, trusting communities, and not putting a bunch of strings sort of on the, on the money. So if you could talk to funders that might be a little skeptical about unrestricted funding, what would you say to them?
- [23:00]
B
I would say that first of all, it's important to vet. So to ease your tension around giving, it's important to just do the homework up front and vet the organizations. I think McKinsey has done a lot of that work for philanthropists out there who may be interested in contributing to organizations. But also I would say that Native led organizations are the closest to creating the solutions because we are of community. And in community, the other thing that's important for funders to know is less than one half of 1% of all philanthropic dollars go to Indian country. That's it. So we get such a small, I think it's like 0.4%. So it's less than, it's less than a half percent of philanthropic funds that go into Indian country. And we know the solutions for our people. We know culturally contextualized ways to create impact. We have proven track records. So I think it's just important for them to, to know that, yes, to support a tribal, tribally led nonprofit, I think you're going to be closer to solving the problems because we are of community. And for us as nonprofits, like I mentioned before, it's up for, it's. It's up to us to make sure that we're creating true impact, impact that is visible and, and just show, show that so that we can create the kind of belief in us that's needed to, to be able to fund us. But I do think unrestricted giving is the wave of the future and we do see that in some of our partners. And I love that some of our, some of our long term partners, instead of now saying, go through our process, they say, how would you like to spend the funds? And then they align it to their giving. So they're getting closer to unrestricted giving. But I do feel that unrestricted giving is the most impactful because it gives us the freedom to do what is necessary and to serve our constituent base in the way that is the most impactful for us. So for us, it's transformed our organization and I look forward to more philanthropic giving in the years to come.
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A
So what does the future look like for Native Forward? What's on the horizon?
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B
Well, you know, I talked a lot about strategy as an mba, I definitely geek out on strategy and implementation of strategy and redefining that and looking, you know, making sure that we're reaching the next level of achievement and it will always be for us putting our students front and center. So we are focused on growing this endowment. We started the endowment with $40 million. We want that to get to $100 million. You know, with that type of funding, that would produce at a 5% rate, that would produce $5 million a year in annual scholarships given. And when you think about what would that look like? That looks like $5,000 scholarship to a thousand students. And by giving students a $5,000 scholarship, a minimum of that, we are able to reduce the student loans by up to 60%. So that's what we're looking at. We're looking at legacy giving. We're looking at making sure our current students can have money, but also our students, our children and our grandchildren. But we are focused on increasing revenue or increasing scholarships and increasing the number of lives that we can change. We have a very specific strategy and targets, and we are inviting any potential partner who wants to create that impact to join us in that journey. It's focused on scholarships and endowment money, but also we know that scholarships are not. It's not enough just to give a scholarship and say, good luck. Right? So with Native Forward, what we've done, part of the McKinsey gift, we were able to utilize to staff up, to be able to provide wraparound services for every single scholar who applies. So we do targeted outreach to our students. We do phone calls, we do texts, we do emails, we. We connect with them. We say, hey, how are you doing academically? And how can we support you and help them along that journey? So that is a part of our success and why our graduation rates are 30% higher than the national average. It is the wraparound services. It is the mentorship that we provide through our alumni, so we see more of that, and we need to be able to reach the students who we can't fund. So it's really increasing the number of lives that we impact.
- [27:50]
A
What would your advice be to a nonprofit leader right now that is feeling just frustrated, overwhelmed, and kind of almost disillusioned in this. In this fundraising environment, this economy, and this crazy moment of global uncertainty? What would your advice be?
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B
My advice is we are all in this together.
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A
Yes.
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And I have found so much support, and it's easy to lose hope. But when you find support in community. I love that you brought up community, because that is important. You know, there are so many of us out there going through that, and to be able to lean on each other and participate in collectives and partner together in ways that you have not thought of before. Like, think about that. Maybe an unusual partner or someone that you wouldn't have thought of before, and think of them not only as a peer, but as a partner in this. So what I do, I participate in these collectives where I get the support that I need, so I don't feel hopeless. But what it's doing for me is it's educating me in ways, in skills that I didn't have, and it is creating ideas for partnership. And I think that that's something that philanthropy does like to see. When you collaborate with people, you're stronger together. And, you know, there is the book the Sum of Us. Right. We're greater together than individually, and that is also a Native concept. And it's like, we are a community together. And instead of having a scarcity mindset like, oh, my gosh, this is horrible, and now we're fighting for a smaller piece of the pie. Don't think like that. But to think collectively that when we partner together, we can create something even more wonderful. So I would just encourage people to find a community that you can connect with and support each other through these times. As a Native person, I think of what my ancestors have gone through, and they went through much worse. All of our ancestors have been through harder times. Right. And we're still here. So I think that we're still going to be here when this is over, and the arm of justice will swing back in our favor. So I think we just have to continue to support each other and maybe think outside of the box and come up with a way to support each other through this.
- [30:20]
A
Thank you for that. I agree. And I love the finding a community knowing that you're not alone, knowing you know we are all in this together. So where can people connect with you Angelique and learn more about Native Forward and the amazing stuff that you're doing?
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B
Well on our website native forward.org we also have all the social media platforms which kind of talk about our current events and different ways to to be engaged LinkedIn and if you want to partner I encourage you to email me@angeliqueed forward.org Fantastic.
- [30:52]
A
Thank you so much. I know you're very busy, but this has been a wonderful conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time and thank you.
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B
It is important you're doing your part to make sure that we as Native people have voice and representation. So thank you so much for for giving us this time.
- [31:17]
A
Well hey there. I wanted to say thank you for tuning into my show and for listening all the way to the end. If you really enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app and you'll get new episodes downloaded as soon as they come out. I would love if you left me a rating or or review because this tells other people that my podcast is worth listening to and then me and my guests can reach even more earbuds and create even more impact. So that's pretty much it. I'll be back soon with a brand new episode, but until then you can find me on Instagram. Juliacampbell77 Keep changing the world, you nonprofit unicorn SA.