674. Shift 4 — Capacity Isn’t Extra: Build Your Foundation for Sustainable Growth - Brooke Richie-Babbage

Summary

Podcast Summary:

We Are For Good Podcast – Episode 674
Title: Shift 4 — Capacity Isn’t Extra: Build Your Foundation for Sustainable Growth
Guest: Brooke Richie-Babbage
Release Date: January 14, 2026
Hosts: Becky Endicott, Chelsea, and Jon McCoy

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Overview

This episode digs deep into nonprofit capacity-building, challenging the notion that capacity is something you “earn” once your organization is big or successful. Growth strategist and nonprofit leader Brooke Richie-Babbage joins the We Are For Good team to reframe capacity as foundational, not extra. The conversation is part of their “12 Shifts” series and focuses on practical, mindset-shifting strategies for building truly sustainable nonprofits — ones where leaders and teams thrive, and the work is scalable and not dependent on “heroics.”

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining Capacity: Beyond Tools and Hustle

• Brooke’s Core Definition: Capacity means reducing organizational fragility — making the “how” of work easier so impact can grow without burning people out.
• Challenging Superficial Approaches: Too often, capacity-building is equated with adopting new tools/platforms. But for Brooke, it’s deeper: “It makes it more possible for you and your team to do the work and sustain the work that you want to do without what I call heroics.” (02:10)
• Metaphors:
  • House: “The capacity is the building itself... is the floor creaking beneath you or is it strong and holding you up?” (04:12)
  • Mug: “You can pour money, you can pour team... but if that cup is cracked, it’s gonna start to leak out.” (06:30)

2. Stability is a Leadership Choice — You Build It Now

• Stability Isn’t Earned Later:

  “Stability is a leadership choice. Designing for stability is a decision that we make as leaders to put the pieces in place to make the house strong.” (00:05 & 07:49)

• Mindset Shift: Don’t wait for more money, more staff, or perfect timing to feel stable. Build stability deliberately, starting with financial rhythms and practices.
• Concrete Example:
  Brooke described learning, as an ED, to anticipate her organization's seasonal “cash cliff” and proactively adjust fundraising actions and donor conversations, rather than relying on hope or last-minute heroics. (07:49–11:56)

3. Capacity Building ≠ Hiring

• Brooke’s Firm Stance:

  “Capacity building and hiring are not the same thing. They’re not synonyms.” (15:09)

• Think Beyond FTEs: Especially for small to mid-sized nonprofits, solutions could be fractional roles, coaches, board engagement, peer expertise, or smart tools — starting with where the real fragility lies.
• Design Deficits:
  Identify “design deficits” — weaknesses in structure/process, not people — and solve for them intentionally, with the right combination of people and systems. (13:16–16:35)

4. Two Core Shifts for 2026: Fewer Priorities and Clearer Constraints

• Fewer Priorities:
  “More, more, more, more is not what we need.” Instead, try narrowing focus, having “build years” rather than “growth years” — depth over breadth. (17:09–17:25)
• Clearer Constraints:
  Honest limits create decision clarity and make it easier to say no, protecting your focus and energy — which enhances capacity. (17:25–20:16)
• Impact on Fundraising: Clarity about what you’re not doing, as much as what you are, better rallies your community and board.

5. Community as Untapped Capacity

• Add “Community” to Clarity, Capacity, Capital:
  “Calling in community can give you untold capacity... it’s the capacity people leave on the table the most.” (21:07–21:13)
• The hosts urge listeners not to overlook supporters, volunteers, and the broader network as a source of real organizational muscle.

6. First Three Moves to Actually Build Capacity

Brooke challenges the “we need to build capacity” cliche by outlining practical places to start:

• Decision Clarity:
  Who decides what? Where are the bottlenecks? Who owns too much? Decision-mapping reduces friction and fragility. (22:10)
• Leadership Load:
  What should only leaders do versus what systems/institutions can hold? Where can work be automated or properly delegated? (22:10–24:54)
• Cash Flow Predictability:
  It’s not just about total $ raised but having systems that ensure month-to-month and quarter-to-quarter revenue confidence. (22:10–24:54)

7. Case Study: Real Organizational Shift

• A client of Brooke’s moved from being overloaded with decision-making and information to developing structures so only necessary info/decisions went to the ED.
• As a result:
  • The ED freed time, focused on vision/relationships, and improved major donor work.
  • The team stepped up, stress reduced, and they unlocked $700,000 in fresh funding.
  • Brooke’s takeaway: Actual capacity shifts are often “subtle and behind the scenes” — not always visible in a KPI, but felt in energy, sustainability, and momentum. (26:41–32:27)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Building Stability:

  “You build your own stability. It doesn’t happen because you happen to be this sort of magical leader and all the pieces fall into place. You guys know that never happens.” (07:49)

• On Emotional Weight for EDs:

  “Most of what you do as a leader is not going to be in your zone of genius... The point is finding the people for whom it is.” (13:16)

• On the Most Left-On-the-Table Resource:

  “Community. Calling in community can give you untold capacity... it’s the capacity people leave on the table the most.” (21:07)

• On Saying No:

  “We all have permission to high five every time we say no—not because it feels like a rejection, but because it feels like a confirmation or an affirmation of what we’re saying yes to.” (19:38)

• On the Need for Permission to Let Go:

  “There is no leader that’s doing it all. ... The balls I was, in my mind, letting drop were actually just evidence that we will always have more plans than we can operationalize.” (25:30)

• On Funders and Capacity:

  “When you go and have these conversations with funders, do not embrace the fear of I cannot tell them that I want a decision making loop... The more we begin to socialize the diversity and scale of what capacity looks like, ... we are going to create a paradigm shift.” (32:40)

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Important Timestamps

• Definition of Capacity & Why It Matters: 02:10–05:14
• Stability as a Choice, Not a Reward: 07:49–11:56
• Separating Capacity from FTEs: 13:16–16:35
• Key Shifts for 2026: 16:57–20:16
• Community as Capacity: 21:07–22:10
• Practical Starting Points: 22:10–24:54
• Case Study (ED role clarity & impact): 26:41–32:27
• Playbook/Homework: 34:33–36:33

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Brooke’s Homework / Playbook for Nonprofit Leaders

1. Name the Real Constraints and Fragility

• “Where are we feeling fragile? ... What’s causing this fragility? ... Map it. No shade, no guilt, just honest.” (34:33)

2. Design for Relief, Not Perfection

• “As you look at these places of fragility ... what is going to make you and your team feel like you’re carrying less load? Start there.” (35:20)

3. Protect What You Build

• “... it’s going to feel uncomfortable at first. ... Don’t jump to going back to the old way of doing things. Protect the system as you build it.” (36:00)

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Closing Sentiment

Brooke and the hosts close on a message of hope and possibility: sustainable capacity is both achievable and inherently nurturing for people, not just for programs. When you build with intention, protect boundaries, and tap into community, nonprofits (and their leaders) truly can thrive.

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Connect with Brooke

• LinkedIn: Brooke Richie-Babbage
• Programs:
  • Next Level Nonprofit Mastermind (for orgs over $1M)
  • Elevate Program (tailored roadmap for orgs under $1M)
• Learn More: brookrichiebabbage.com/fitcheck

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This summary captures all crucial content, standout advice, and the empowering, “hopeful and practical” tone that’s the trademark of We Are For Good’s conversations. For anyone working in or with nonprofits, these are actionable truths for 2026 and beyond.

Transcript

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

Stability is a leadership choice. Designing for stability is a decision that we make as leaders to put the pieces in place to make the house strong. There's a mindset shift that actually has to happen that helps people understand you build your own stability.

[Becky]

Welcome back to the 12 shifts conversations. I am so excited about our guest today, Becky. I mean, we brought in, like, our one of our dear FONA friends for this topic, right?

[Chelsea]

Not just a phone, a friend. Like, this woman is in my, like, sustainable sisterhood. She is one of my favorite humans on the planet.

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

We had an amazing breakfast together, Chelsea.

[Chelsea]

Hotel a couple months ago. It was just amazing. But also like Brooke Richie Babbage understands capacity. Brooke Ritchie Babbage understands the bigger strategy behind why you need a bigger plan for your organization that doesn't bring you out and it actually helps you thrive. So I'm excited about that.

[Becky]

I love that lead in B because I feel like, you know, at the top of the year, you see all these trends lists come out and we don't want to just deliver a trends list to you. That's not what these conversations are. These are shifts that are meaningful that are not reinventing the wheel. It's going back to, like, the core things that'll help us thrive. So our guest today, Brooke Richie Babbage, you may already recognize her laugh, which I think is so infectious, but she's a nonprofit capacity builder and growth strategist. Our dear friend who helps organizations grow sustainably. She spent years helping leaders build stronger fundraising systems, smarter staffing models, and clear structures so their impact can actually scale. So today we're talking about how to build real capacity. We're not talking about just the hustle. We want to help your organization keep up with the work and be able to grow in the future, too. So, Brooke, it is delightful to have you here. Last time you joined us, I feel like it was back in the early 600 episodes. This is gave us this really clear picture on resilience, and I feel like that theme needs to carry through today. But today we want to zoom in on specifically capacity, like, because it's the thing that so many leaders feel they don't have, and we want that to shift this year.

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

I always love talking to the two of you. I love the topics that you choose. They are exactly the right ones. They go to the heart of what makes our work doable and sustainable. And like you said, I love talking about capacity. I am going to start by just reiterating, you know, what the two of you said about why focus on capacity and why now? I think that a lot of times we talk about capacity building and what comes to mind are tactics. Right. Capacity building is often particularly as funders framed around tools. Right. Do I. Should I use Asana or Monday.com? you know? Right. Should I? I just had a great conversation with a woman in my coaching program about a tech tool to help her board meetings and her board feel more efficient. Right. That feels like we are making progress around capacity. The way that I define capacity and the way that I teach it and talk about it is that it reduces fragility in the organization. It makes it more possible for you and your team to do the work and sustain the work that you want to do without what I call heroics. Right? Without special circumstances or magic money appearing or people running themselves into the ground. And I think the important thing to think about when we talk about and define capacity building and why January or the beginning of the year or honestly, if you're listening to this, later, the beginning of the day, beginning of the week. Right.

[Becky]

Thank you.

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

Why now? Immediately now, Whatever the now is for you is the right time to think about capacity this way, is that capacity building is about changing the conditions under which your work happens. It's about making the how easier. So it's deeper than, do you have the right people on your team? It's how are the people working together? How are we supporting each other? How are we showing up for one another? And I think that can feel fuzzy to people. One of the things that I love about my conversations with you guys is you always encourage, slash, push me to be concrete. And so I know we'll get into some of the concretes, but that I wanted to start with sort of that definition of capacity building. We're talking about changing the underlying conditions so that the how gets easier. One metaphor that I use is if you think about building a house, I often go to the metaphor of, you know, building a house. The capacity is the building itself, right? It's the walls. Are they strong and steady? Is the floor creaking or cracking beneath you? Or is it strong and holding you up? So when you're moving through the house, when you're bringing people into the house, when you're throwing parties in the house or sleeping in the house, whatever you're doing in the house, is the house keeping you warm, holding you up, keeping you safe? That's the capacity.

[Chelsea]

Okay, I'm gonna get into my confessional and say, have you ever been in work and you hear people saying words and somebody will say a phrase and you look around and everybody's nodding. And capacity building was that word that I had no clue what it meant.

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

Yeah. For a long bit, like, the emperor has no clothes, and you don't want to be the one not nodding, so.

[Chelsea]

You'Re like, has no clothes. I remember this with variable data. John, when we were like, early. Early days of marketing, like, before there.

[Becky]

Was chatgpt over here to give us a.

[Chelsea]

Exactly. But honestly, the two things that you said that really stayed with me is capacity reduces fragility. One, yes, that is a really important part. But as someone who's so visual, that house analogy, I understood it completely, because capacity is why you stay. Capacity is why you grow. Capacity is culture. Capacity. To me, this is what I. This is what I've learned over time. And it's not just about your capacity as an individual, but, my gosh, we can. We really care about that. But it's about the capacity of the team, about the vision. It's about having a container that can hold something to grow without breaking it.

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

It's the container. Absolutely. You know, another metaphor for visual people. Cups. Right. A. A cup, a mug. Your favorite mug. Does it have cracks in it? Right. Because you can pour money, you can pour team, you can pour liquid into a cup.

[Becky]

Oh, my gosh.

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

But if that cup is cracked, it's gonna start to leak out. And that's the fragility that a lot of us are sitting with. A lot of the leaders that I work with, most of the leaders that I work with, they come to me because they feel like their organizations are fragile. They are a house of cards or something. You know, the pieces are in place. But there's something that feels not as safe about moving forward, and that's a lack of capacity.

[Chelsea]

I love that analogy so much. So I want to lift something that you recently shared on your podcast where you said that stability isn't something you earn later.

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

Yeah.

[Chelsea]

It's something you design early or you pay for it. And so I want you to talk about that a little bit, because I think there's going to be a lot of people who relate to feeling that way and understanding that that is not nuanced. That's real. So what does it look like for orgs to, like, intentionally build stability in this year?

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

Absolutely. I loved making that podcast episode because I got to be a little preachy. But what I realized was I was having a lot of convers with leaders where without realizing it, they kept coming back to, you know, we'll feel better and things will feel more stable. When I have the right team, right? When I learn to delegate is a big one. This next grant that we are expecting, that will make us feel stable. And I realized that there's a mindset shift that actually has to happen that helps people understand. You build your own stability. It doesn't happen because you happen to be this sort of magical leader and all the pieces fall into place. You guys know that never happens. All the pieces will never be in place. And so what it looks like is, and I've said this on LinkedIn, and it's the unsexy stuff, right, that you want to invest in. The mindset shift is realizing, and I said this on the podcast, stability is a leadership choice, right? Designing for stability is a decision that we make as leaders to put the pieces in place to make the house strong, and then you feel more stable. So, for example, things like paying attention to financial rhythms, right? This is one that I've been talking a lot about in January. I'm doing a lot of work with the folks in my program around understanding your numbers. So what does that mean? We worry about cash cliffs, let's say, right? Is the funding going to come in? But what the financial rhythms in place means is, are you looking at your profit and loss? Are you looking at your accounts receivable, right? How long does it take for funders or donors to typically pay you? Are you looking at who gave you money, where it came from? What are those rhythms for this quarter last year? And what does that tell you about the kinds of conversations maybe you want to be having now? So, for example, when I was running my organization, I realized that April was always a really scary month. We got a lot of money in the last quarter of the year, right? And then January, February, March, we spent the money. And so by the time we got to April every year, I was terrified because I needed to bring in money or I would start to feel like a payroll crunch. So for me, a very concrete example of building the stability, right, not waiting to feel stable, not waiting for that money to come in, was I started getting to the point where, and I will say I was not a money person. I was not a finance person. So you don't have to feel like you're a finance person. But I sat down and I said, what do these rhythms tell me about spring? It tells me that if every April is weird, in February, I need to start having conversations with funders that are about moving gifts forward. I need to have more conversations with new donors and have more asks in Q1. I need to change my practices because these rhythms are telling me something about where the fragility lives. So that's just one example of setting up structures and practices intentionally. And they can be little things like just looking at your data, right. Having conversations with your board in January about what the fundraising expectations will be in August. And it feels like it's a long way away. But create a calendar with your board around what's showing up and being a present board member is going to look like in concrete terms, every month for the rest of the year. That isn't a nice to have. That's not a, oh, wouldn't it be great if we could do it? It doesn't have to take a long time. But that kind of infrastructure means that you are not surprising people with fundraising conversations in August. Right? You've laid that foundation. You strengthened your walls. Foreign.

[Becky]

Hey, friend. Taking a quick pause to share about some of our amazing partners. Meet givebutter RKD Group Whiteboard. And so in these aren't just amazing partners for we are for good. They're value aligned allies who are fueling and growing the impact uprising. And so of course we want you to know them. So if you are looking for a new CRM or a fundraising or marketing partner, maybe an impact strategist or a creative team, we'd love to make a warm introduction for you to one of our trusted partners. They happen to be powered by amazing humans too. You can check them [e-mail] Rex that's weareforgood.com RECS. I mean, thanks for your vulnerability to even share like you didn't know what you were doing when you were figuring this out. You know, I think the same is true of our story that if, if we hadn't hired like a fractional CFO in our business, it would have been terrifying because that's not our core strength. You know, in the same way, like those rhythms, if you can't, if you don't have that skill set, find a way to do it. And it doesn't mean a FTE necessarily. There's a lot of ways to, to get that help.

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

So I want to highlight two things that you just said because I'm really happy you said them. The first thing you said is not your skillset. One of the things that I find freeing about this way of thinking about capacity, right. And building stability is that it makes it not personal and it makes it not emotional, right? If I as a leader look at my organization and I say, look, these are, I talk about design Deficits. Right. There is a fragility in the design of your organization. If I look and I'm like, cash flow is a challenge, or you know, how our team. Our team is meeting too much. That's a design deficit. Right. Once I name that, that's not, of course, I'm not going to be the only one to fix it. It's about the structure of the organization, which frees me up to then say, who are the people I need to bring in? Do I need coaches? Do I need fractional support? Do we need to leverage the expertise of people on our team? It stops being about heroics or me sort of figuring everything out as the leader. It's about the design of the institution. It's an intellectual exercise. Right. There are methods. Right. So that's the first thing that I just wanted to highlight. That of course, most of what you do as a leader is not going to be in your zone of genius. It doesn't have to be. The point is finding the people for whom it is. And focusing on design means that you can bring to bear all the different people. The second thing that you said is it doesn't necessarily have to be an fte. I would like to encourage people listening to not think about capacity in terms of fte, to like, completely separate the question of capacity building and staff and bringing people in from the question of fte.

[Chelsea]

That is really different in my brain. Oh, my gosh, yes. Keep going, keep going. I think that's a very common default.

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

Yeah. That we think about. And in the interest of, like, protecting, you know, or speaking directly to folks who are listening, we're like, oh, yeah, I actually do that. Funders often perpetuate that, that, that we talk about capacity building in terms of hiring. Yeah, right. We'll help you build capacity by hiring. So I just want to say I'm going to put this stake in the ground. Capacity building and hiring are not the same thing. They're not synonyms. One of the ways you can build capacity is to hire, maybe. And within that bucket, maybe it's an FTE often, particularly for growing organizations. And I work with organizations that are like a million to 3 million. Very often, FTE is not what you need. You need fractional support. You need to outsource expertise. So you start with, what is the. Where are we fragile? Right. How do we need to be stronger? And then you ask, what are all of the different ways to make us stronger? Maybe it's people. Maybe it's bored. Maybe it's people in your network. Right. Maybe it's expertise, maybe it's a tool. There's so many different things you can bring to bear if you think expansively about capacity. So I love that you said it doesn't have to be fte. It will often not be fte. And giving ourselves the freedom to think what makes this stronger, Maybe it's a person, maybe it's not. I think also can reduce some of the anxiety around the money piece.

[Becky]

Yeah, I mean, it's just not a one size fits all conversation, you know. But I do think you were. We work present terms with so many organizations. You get to drop in and see the struggles across the board. What would you say if you kind of zoom out, what are some of the core shifts that you think leaders need to make in this moment for 2026? What is consistent threads that you see?

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

I think there are two that I'll highlight. The first is fewer priorities, I think, as we.

[Becky]

Which means fewer calls to action and all the good things.

[Chelsea]

Oh, my go. I feel, I feel the capitalism incapacity. It's like, more, more, more, more, more, more, more. And it's like, oh, my gosh, thank you for saying only two.

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

Yeah, more, more, more, more, more is not what we need.

[Chelsea]

And it's not sustainable.

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

It's not sustainable. And so I think the like, building, building, go, go, go, hustle as strategy doesn't work. And so very concretely, I would encourage folks to have fewer things that you are aiming to focus on and go deep around. And if that means having conversations. I had a podcast episode where I talked about talking about build years as opposed to growth years. Right. Talking about years where you pause, where you define growth and impact not in terms of doing more, but in terms of depth, in terms of strength. So I think this is going to be that year. Right. So narrowing. And then the second thing that I would say is making a shift to clearer constraints. I think that that's another place that leaders and organizations can struggle is what's our decision frame? How will we know when to say no? Right. So if you have fewer priorities, being clearer with your board, with your team about what you're going to say no to this year, what. What you're allowed to say, wait a minute, we'll try that in 2027. We'll put that in the parking lot or the grassy knoll or whatever, we're not. Right. We're not gonna let go of it. But this year we are going to say yes to these two or three things and we give ourselves permission to say no to Everything else. I think those two things together are important. I also think, ironically, they help with things like fundraising. That being really clear, I think this is going to be a year where fundraising is going to be raising money, bringing in revenue is going to be much more deeply tied to community and affinity than ever in the past. I think. Same right. Calling in our people, calling in the people that believe in what we're doing and want to help us get to where we're going is going to be critical. And so being able to say, we're not doing all the things this year, we're doing these two things. These are the things that matter, that speak to our values, that speak to the impact we want to have, that's going to call people in much better. And being able to say to your board and your team, these are all the things we're saying no to. And we all have permission to high five every time we say no. Not because it feels like a rejection, but because it feels like a confirmation or an affirmation of what we're saying yes to. Naming that and leaning into that, I think will both clear people's minds and make the institutions that they're building stronger.

[Chelsea]

Okay, so smart. I need to connect something and just like double click on what you said that I thought think is just so brilliant. And when you came on the last time on the podcast, you've been on a bazillion times, you keynoted Impact up. And I'm pretty sure we were talking about resiliency and capacity. But I want people to check out this episode, episode 614. We'll drop it in the show notes. But when you talked about a clear picture of resilience, it was around clarity, capacity, capital. Right?

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

I am nothing of math consistent. You.

[Chelsea]

You truly are. And yes, yes, God, love the alliteration as well. But I want to throw another one, another C in there that I think is such an unlock for capacity, which is what you just said, which is community. And calling in community can give you untold capacity.

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

Because, friends, it's the capacity people leave on the table the most. Oh, my gosh, yes.

[Chelsea]

I'm like, call in those rabid fans. Call in those believers. People are looking for hope. They are looking for ways to. To be a light in this world right now. They understand the struggle that we are all feeling because they are feeling it. And I absolutely think your community is an extension of your staff. It's an extension of your culture. It's an extension of your brand. I think that was such an excellent pro tip. And I want to throw something at you real quick because I've heard this phrase many, many times. Pretty sure I've said it many, many times. And we need to build capacity this year. Yeah, you hear that a lot.

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

Yeah.

[Chelsea]

And so I want to give people some really practical tips to say if you. If you are someone who says, I, we need to build capacity this year, I need to put some focus on this. What are the first two to three places you would go to look inside the organization to start doing that?

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

Absolutely. So the first one is decision clarity. Right. I would get super clear about who owns what, who decides what, and where are their bottlenecks. That is a really great place for organizations to start to understand, honestly, who is owning too much. Right. As we think about that infrastructure, that container that's holding us, we assume that every decision that lives in the institution needs to be made, needs to be owned by someone. But when you start with clarity and you realize, oh, this person on the team is holding decision making accountability for six out of the 10 things we have to do in the coming month, that's too much. Right. That clarity helps to both highlight fragility and help things move with less friction. So that's the first thing, decision making, clarity. Second thing, I would look at leadership load. I would look at what only the executive director and if you have a leadership team, what the leaders in the organizations can do versus what the system should be doing, what the institution should be doing. So where are you as. And I'll just speak to executive directors. Where are you holding work? And I don't just mean delegation to other people. I mean, where are you holding things that could be automated and that could be handed over to a tool that the institution should be supporting you in doing? Right. Where do you need to be held instead of doing the holding and then the third cash flow. Cash flow predictability. Right. I think I just recorded a podcast, it might be coming out in the next few weeks, where I talk about predictability, like what a good revenue engine looks like. And it's predictability, sustainability, consistency. Right. So we're coming out of December. If you're listening to this live, it's January. Lots of people had, you know, year ends, where they're like, yay, buddy came in. That's amazing. I talk about how that's like a little bit of, like a sugar high, right? Yeah, it's a great one. It feels great. But it doesn't mean you have a good revenue engine. And so I actually think, you know, and I talked about this on the last podcast that the clarity, capacity, and capital. It's a Venn diagram, right? They build off of one another. And so the ability to build capacity requires that we have some predictability in our capital. So not just how much are we bringing in, but what are the systems we have in place. So that month over month, we know what's coming. We feel like we can pull a lever and trust that money will come out.

[Chelsea]

Yeah, you're so smart.

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

I just need to take you with me everywhere. Becky, you are.

[Becky]

I mean, Brooke, I like how this is stacking. You know, if you're listening to this, we just talked about the importance of clarity and narrowing our priorities. And it's like that cascades into the next step, because when we start listing out the jobs to be done, it's going to be too much. Like, it's just going to be too much. How do you narrow. You have to know what matters, what moves the needle, what ties to cash flow, what does not, like understanding how it all fits. So I love how you're leading us through this. It's so.

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

And I love that you said it's going to be too much. So if we know, right, if we know that, which it always is, if we accept it, then we can give ourselves. I think a lot of this, honestly, a lot of the work that I do with the leaders in my program is about giving them permission to and normalizing letting go. Giving them permission to say, oh, wait, I'm not supposed to have to do it all. There is no leader that's doing it all. And I still remember from my days of running my organization, part of why I loved my sustainable sisterhood was the constant reminder that the balls I was, in my mind letting drop were actually just evidence that we will always have more plans than we can operationalize. That is okay. It's about being intentional and clear about which ones we're going to lean into and giving ourselves permission to let go of the other ones or pause on the other ones.

[Becky]

Yeah, it's so good. I was going to ask you about the organizations you work with that there's one that stands out that's kind of been intentional about building capacity in an impactful way and, like, what that shift looked like for them.

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

Most of the organizations that I work with are growing, right. And I think you guys know this. They're sort of early seven figures to mid seven figures. And so there's a lot of learning and evolution constantly happening in real time. And that sense of instability can be very present for folks and so one of the conversations that comes to mind when I think about what this looks like concretely actually was around what is my role as an executive director like as a leader, as my organization is growing and I am building a structure that can hold me and I do have a team that I can delegate to, like what do I focus on? And one of the, I'll just sort of highlight a few things that came out of a recent conversation with him. We focused a lot on the structure of his team and how information flows. And that seems again, unsexy. It seems like it's not rubber on the road. It feels like the kind of thing, how do we talk to a funder about investing in life, setting up decision making protocols? But I can tell you in the first three months that we worked together, sitting down and making some sometimes tough decisions about what information he was going to hold on to, what decisions he was going to make, versus saying I don't actually need to know items one through eight on the list anymore because I have people on my team that know that I now only need to know items 9 and 10. And that frees my time up. If I'm not focusing on knowing all the things, seeing all the decisions before they're made, understanding what happened in every single meeting, getting updates about every decision. If I'm not at that level, then actually I'm having better, deeper, more frequent conversations with partners, with funders, with donors. I'm getting to know my board members better and understanding to your point, Becky, who are the other people in my community? So one of the things we saw when we sat down with him and his leadership team, and first it was with him and then he brought in his leadership team and said, we're going to change who holds what information. We're going to get clear about who makes which decisions to free the people who are not making those decisions up to actually do their work. Right. At a higher level, we're going to figure out how to share information in ways that don't involve meetings. These are the interstitial tissue things about how the team was moving together. Within three months, he had had conversations with funders that brought in an extra $700,000.

[Chelsea]

I'm so proud of you, amazing stranger.

[Becky]

That's awesome.

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

No, he's, and, and he, he showed up at one of our, our calls and he said, I am moving through the world as a different leader. I'm not holding on to everything. So to me, when we talk about building and I work with executive director, so a lot of the, a Lot of my focus is on capacity through their eyes, right through the lens of that role on a team. When we talk about capacity building and we talk about building a stronger organization, that's what he was doing. And it was something subtle and behind the scenes about the how. Right. How they work together that freed him up to sit in his zone of genius. He's an excellent, like, he's really good at having conversations about his vision. It also, at three months he looked and realized his team had actually stepped into their roles. He could trust them better. And it wasn't that he didn't trust them before, it's that he didn't know if he could because he hadn't really let them do their work. And they would come to him with questions and sometimes they got things wrong. But they were figuring out how to make the infrastructure stronger. Their number of meetings went down, the level of stress went down. Everybody was sort of. They were moving faster, better together. And I think what's tricky, again, to go back to the beginning of our conversation about getting, say, funding for capacity building is that he can talk about what that feels like. And we could see, you know, the $700,000, you know, or the team feeling less stressed. But the shift in capacity isn't something where there's like one KPI. It's not a thing that everybody looking is going to see. It is felt. They just, they aren't burning out. And so how do you get that funded? Right. I think that's the challenge. Like, what do you, what's the thing you put in your impact report that shows the profound effect of building actual capacity? And because that's a tough thing to answer, we tend to not look at those kinds of unsexy things. And we tend to look at I built capacity by hiring a new development director. Right. And so that's actually why I wanted to highlight that example, because the effect on his organization, they are a qualitatively different and stronger organization coming into this year than when we started working together. Not because he didn't hire a single other person and he didn't bring in new. I mean, he did bring in new funders, but that's not where the 700, 700k came from. I wanted to highlight that as an example because it isn't the building capacity by adding a new tool. Right. It's actual making the container stronger.

[Chelsea]

Okay, you are bookending your, I mean, initial comments so beautifully here as we're closing out. And I also want to book in some.

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

I'm a Virgo, I Like to think in symmetry. I gotta bring us back full circle.

[Chelsea]

Yeah. I just think that what you're saying has such resonance. And I would like to bookend another thing that you said that I would, I would love for this community's help to do, which is you said that that belief system we have, that capacity is adding people largely comes from funders or, you know, that's a big presence. Well, then I say to you, my nonprofit friend, when you are going and having these conversations with funders, do not embrace the fear of I cannot tell them that I want a decision making loop. The more we begin to socialize, the diversity and the scale of what capacity looks like, we're not going to just lift our own organizations. We're going to lift everybody's organization. We are going to create a paradigm shift. With funders, the capacity isn't just about adding more. It's about getting smarter. And it's about, you know, Brene Brown talks about, to be clear is to be kind. And you know, as a neuro spicy person, I'm like, thank you for telling me you don't need items one through eight, because I'd probably give you a really long list of stuff. But if you just tell me what I need to give you, I'm going to give you that. And that is the shift, you know, in communication, in relationships, in projects. I just think this is such a big unlock for people and I really think you have retooled my mindset around it just in this conversation alone.

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

So thank you for that, friend.

[Chelsea]

And I know you are no stranger to the podcast. We close out all of our episodes with the one good thing, but with these, these shifts and these trends that we're talking about, we want to talk about a little bit of homework. And we say that with love. And it's not going to be anything you have to do, but it's like, what is the playbook that you would give to nonprofit leaders? Or maybe it's a one good thing. Maybe it's two to three moves they can make coming out of this episode to build real capacity. What would you say to that?

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

So I'm going to say three things. And they build and they're small, but they're important homework. So the first is name the real constraints in your organization. Right? So instead of. Or start with where are we feeling fragile? And then take the next step and look at the foundation and say, what's causing this fragility? What is making this feel hard? Is it that we don't really know where our money's coming from is it that we are having so many meetings, but nobody feels like it's. Things are getting done right? So what's actually causing the fragility? And bring your team in, right? Have that conversation and map it. No shade, no guilt, just honest. Can't fix it if we don't name it. Second, as you think about redesigning so that the institution can hold the weight of the work, design for relief, not perfection. So as you look at these places of fragility, these design deficits, these constraints, what is going to make you and your team feel like you're carrying less load? Start there, right? Because that will immediately add to your capacity when you are not feeling that load. And then third, as you redesign your systems, as you build the container to hold the work and make it stronger in these places, protect it, right? You're going to design a system or a process, you're going to rework some of the infrastructure, and it's going to feel uncomfortable at first. And people may say, wait, this isn't how we're used to doing things. It may even fail the first time. And you know, some water's leaking. That's okay. Don't jump to going back to the old way of doing things. Protect the system as you build it. So I would be honest about the causes of the fragility. Design for relief, and then protect what you build.

[Becky]

Don't you feel like you're breathing a little easier now after this combo?

[Chelsea]

I feel like I do.

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

You know, that's what I want people to. There is hope. There is hope.

[Chelsea]

There is a different way to do this that also feels good.

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

Yes.

[Chelsea]

To everyone. And also can help you grow. It's. It's. Oh, it's so. It is so hopeful.

[Becky]

Thank you for pointing that out, John Bertkucci Babbage. When you come in our house, we breathe easier. Let's say that. But also, like, you do this all the time. Your nonprofit Mastermind podcast serves it up. Your email each week serves it up. Tell all the ways that people can connect with you and work with you. If you're listening today.

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

Absolutely. So definitely follow me on LinkedIn. I share a lot of resources there, Brooke. Richie Babbage is my name. And I have two different ways people can work with me if, if you are running an organization that's over a million dollars. I have, as you guys know, my next level nonprofit Mastermind program. It's a deep dive redesign. Right. We do it together, and it's an incredible community of peers who are in it with you and get it. And the other way that I work with people is if you're under a million is my Elevate program, which is all of the different pillars we talked about, clarity, capacity and capital. It is a personalized roadmap for building those pillars inside your organization. So the best way to get started is brookrichybabbage.com fitcheck, you tell me a little bit about your organization and I tell you how we can work together.

[Chelsea]

You are a treasure to this sector. You are a treasure to us. I just thank you for coming in here and blowing our minds as you always do, and doing it so humanly in a way that it doesn't feel overwhelming, in a way that feels like we can tackle this like one step at a time. And that again, back to your point, John. Hope is there. Let's get you some rest and some breathing room while also scaling your mission.

[Brooke Richie Babbage]

Absolutely. They are not mutually exclusive and I always love being here with you guys. Like I said, you ask exactly the right questions and I follow your podcast. It is just a wealth of information and this community that you guys are building, I'm honored as always to be part of it.

[Chelsea]

Adore you. Good friend.

[Becky]

Good to see you.

[Chelsea]

Thank you.