The Nonprofit Podcast

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  Episode 222| The Fundraising Moments Most Nonprofit Events Miss 17.09.2026 15分

  Send us Fan Mail Most nonprofit events open exactly one path to giving: the ticket. Jena Lynch and Britt Stockert map the fundraising moments most events miss, before doors open, during the event, after everyone goes home, and unpack how nonprofits can open more paths to giving - without extra work for their team. What You'll Learn Why the ticket purchase is one of the best, and most frequently ignored, fundraising opportunities of the event life-cycleWhat good ticket data actually lo...
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  Ep 221| How to Turn Your Ask Into a Connection 10.09.2026 10分

  Send us Fan Mail Heart does that panicked double-thump. Stomach drops. Ohh - there goes gravity! Sound familiar? That's what happens right before most fundraisers call a donor to ask for money…and Britt Stockert, Fundraiser Coach at Donorbox, says that feeling is telling you the opposite of what you think. In this quick, coffee-break episode, Britt shares the four words she scribbled on a sticky note for a burned-out nonprofit leader who needed something simpler than a script. It ...
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  Ep 220| Navigating AI search & Google Ad Grants for nonprofits with Jessica King 03.09.2026 30分

  Send us Fan Mail ChatGPT. Claude. Gemini. Or Google...Search visibility has changed. AI search is changing how donors and volunteers find nonprofits, and most teams are still figuring out what to do about it. This week, host Jena Lynch talks with Jessica King, Director at Getting Attention, about what's actually working in search right now...from why ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are showing up as real traffic sources, to why relying on one platform is risky, plus how to make full use of ...
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  Ep 219| Stop guessing: What donors REALLY want before year-end 27.08.2026 23分

  Send us Fan Mail A simple donor survey is the closest thing you will get to reading your supporters' minds, yet the answers you get are rarely what you expect Donors are sitting on insights most nonprofits never think to look for. Cara Augspurger, our field correspondent and CEO of Grace Care Center Foundation, joins Jena Lynch to share what happened when her team surveyed hundreds of donors ahead of Giving Season, and what the answers revealed about messaging, trust, and the surprising link...
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  Ep 218| End-of-Year Fundraising: A Giving Season Roadmap for Nonprofits 20.08.2026 25分

  Send us Fan Mail You can't repair the runway while the plane is taking off. 🛫 That's Darrin Cook's blunt take on why Giving Season prep has to start in August, not November. Darrin joins Jena Lynch to break down how early infrastructure work, not last-minute campaign scrambling, drives real Giving Season results. He shares a framework for auditing donor data and donation flows now, building stronger donor segments, and knowing where automation earns its keep without losing the human sid...
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  Ep 217| Strategic Planning Isn't an Implementation Problem - with Dr. Renee Rubin Ross 13.08.2026 25分

  Send us Fan Mail A plan built by a few people at the top and handed down is just paperwork. Dr. Renee Rubin Ross argues real ownership comes from who's in the room while the goals get decided, not just who signs off on them. Dr. Ross is the founder of The Ross Collective and author of Inclusive Strategic Planning for Nonprofits. In this episode, she and Britt break down her five-step spiral planning process, including step zero: how to know your organization is actually ready to plan. T...
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  Ep 216| How to Write a Nonprofit AI Policy & Close the Donor Trust Gap 06.08.2026 10分

  Send us Fan Mail Only 26% of nonprofits tell donors when AI helped write to them. 76% of donors say they should be told. That's not small! It's a fifty-point trust gap that grows every time an organization reaches for a new tool without a plan for it. This week, Jena Lynch digs into what's actually pulling nonprofits toward AI right now (hint: it's burnout, not hype), why donors can tell when a human checked out of the process, and the socioeconomic costs that rarely make it into the fu...
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  Summer Rewind| 5 Steps to Building a Nonprofit Strategy That Actually Works 30.07.2026 14分

  Send us Fan Mail Most nonprofit strategic planning mistakes don't show up until year-end, right when your fundraising push exposes exactly what's missing. Being busy isn't the same as having direction. In this Summer Rewind, Cara Augspurger, CFRE, breaks down the five steps that took her organization from constant firefighting to a plan that actually holds up, in six months. What you'll learn How to tell real growth from just being busy, before it costs you at year-endThe one question your st...
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  Summer Rewind| Why Your Nonprofit's Next Leader Needs More Than Potential - With Chris Wong 23.07.2026 24分

  Send us Fan Mail Great performers don't always make great leaders. That gap is costing nonprofits people they can't afford to lose. As nonprofits head into the busiest stretch of the year, Britt Stockert revisits a listener favorite with Chris Wong, founder of Leadership Potential and a licensed therapist who builds leadership programs inside nonprofits. They talk about accidental leadership: the quiet gap between being a great performer and being ready to lead a team, and why closing it matt...
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  Summer Rewind| Slow Fundraising: How to Do Less and Raise More with Chad Barger 17.07.2026 23分

  Send us Fan Mail Summer time and the living...could be easier! Nonprofit teams are gearing up for the second half of the year, and this Summer Rewind brings back one of the show's most practical conversations for that exact moment. Jena Lynch talks with Chad Barger, founder of Productive Fundraising, about slow fundraising: an approach built on doing fewer things, doing them consistently, and letting data guide the decisions. It's a mindset shift for nonprofit teams who are busy but not seein...
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  Summer Rewind| 3 Reasons Nonprofits are Missing out on Donations in 2026 09.07.2026 13分

  Send us Fan Mail Summer is a good time to slow down and check the quiet gaps in your fundraising…before Giving Season prep picks up speed. This episode is a fan favorite, back for our July summer rewind series. Donors haven't stopped giving. They've just gotten more careful, and that means small friction points matter more than they used to. Jena Lynch and Britt Stockert talk through three quiet "leak points", a slow checkout, under-positioned recurring giving, and fading event momentum… and ...
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  Ep 215| Giving USA 2026 - The Fundraiser's Breakdown 02.07.2026 22分

  Send us Fan Mail Giving hit a record high in 2025. What's underneath that number will shape your fundraising strategy for the next decade. Americans gave $617 billion to charity in 2025, a record, and real growth even after inflation. Five of nine nonprofit categories hit all-time highs. The sector showed up!! But the Giving USA 2026 report tells a more layered story. Jena Lynch and Britt Stockert dig into what's really shifting, and what it means for how nonprofits build donor relationship...
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  Ep 214| Retain Your Top Fundraisers: 5 Simple Strategies That Cost Nothing 25.06.2026 15分

  Send us Fan Mail Nearly seven in ten nonprofit employees are actively looking for new jobs…and it's not always about the paycheck. Britt Stockert and Cara Augspurger talk through five low-cost ways to help your team feel appreciated and connected to the mission. Cara draws on real examples from her work at Grace Care Center Foundation, where a culture of recognition has helped keep people engaged without a big perks budget. If you've ever wondered whether you're showing your staff the same ca...
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  Ep 213| 4 Filters Every Nonprofit Leader Needs for Smarter Fundraising Decisions 18.06.2026 23分

  Send us Fan Mail Every nonprofit team has one…the decision that keeps getting pushed to next week. The platform that's been under evaluation for three months. The recurring giving program that still doesn't have a name. The donor email that's been rewritten twelve times and still hasn't been sent. In this episode, Jena Lynch and Britt Stockert get into why fundraising decisions stall and what to do about it. They share a four-filter framework for cutting through the noise, talk through ...
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  Ep 212| The Nonprofit Starvation Cycle: Why Good Fundraisers Burn Out 11.06.2026 12分

  Send us Fan Mail The fundraising capacity gap is the distance between what a nonprofit needs to raise money sustainably and what it's actually resourced to do. And, right now?... That gap is widening. In this episode, Britt Stockert, Fundraiser Coach at Donorbox, unpacks what it is, where it shows up in daily development work, and why it keeps getting misdiagnosed as a performance problem when it's actually a structural one. The numbers are stark. The Nonprofit Finance Fund found tha...
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  Ep 211| The Nonprofit Visibility Gap - and the Funding It's Costing You! 04.06.2026 28分

  Send us Fan Mail “Doubt kills donations.” Before a donor ever gives, they’ve already formed an opinion of your organization. It takes a minute. Sometimes less. And most nonprofits have no idea what’s coming up about their mission. What they find in those moments either builds confidence or raises doubt. In this episode, Jena Lynch sits down with Tori Burrello, Marketing Manager at Candid, to talk about what nonprofit transparency really looks like in practice - and what it costs when it’s mis...
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  Ep 210| The Board Blind Spot: Assessment Is the Key to Better Governance - with David Rhode 28.05.2026 21分

  Send us Fan Mail Nonprofit boards are doing more with less. And when governance isn't working, it's the executive director who absorbs it quietly, consistently, at real cost to the organization. Britt Stockert sits down with David Rhode, nonprofit executive coach and author of Passion Isn't Enough, to talk about the board self-assessment - what it is, why so many boards skip it, and what a well-run board evaluation process actually looks like in practice. A practical, grounded conversation fo...
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  Ep 209| The Real Reason Donors Stop Giving - With Rob Harter 21.05.2026 30分

  Send us Fan Mail Fundraising is getting harder. But generosity hasn't disappeared. So what's actually changing? Jena Lynch sits down with nonprofit coach, consultant, and host of The Nonprofit Leadership Podcast, Rob Harter, to interrogate the real pressures nonprofit leaders are facing right now, donor retention, staffing burnout, supporter engagement, and fundraising performance. They dig into why relationship-based fundraising matters more than ever, why donor trust drives long-term giving...
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  Ep 208| Why Your Nonprofit's Next Leader Needs More Than Potential - With Chris Wong 14.05.2026 24分

  Send us Fan Mail Promoting from within is one of the best things a nonprofit can do. Until it isn't. Not because the person wasn't ready. But because nobody built the bridge between outstanding performer and effective leader, and that gap quietly costs nonprofits some of their best people. Britt Stockert sits down with Chris Wong, founder of Leadership Potential, licensed therapist, and someone who has spent his career building leadership development programs inside nonprofits from the ground...
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  Ep 207| 5 Steps to building a nonprofit strategy that actually works 07.05.2026 14分

  Send us Fan Mail The plan is just paper. The value is in using it. When your nonprofit is growing but still feels directionless, that's not a passion problem…it's a planning problem. Strategic planning isn't about doing more, it's about finally knowing what matters. When you're clear on who you serve, honest about what it costs, and aware of how it's funded, everything else - including your fundraising - gets easier from there. Cara Augspurger, CFRE, spent six months working through...