How to Fix Nonprofit Leadership with Sean Kosofsky

In this episode, I have the pleasure of hosting Sean Kosofsky, also known as "The Nonprofit Fixer." With over 30 years of experience in the nonprofit sector, Sean brings a wealth of knowledge on executive coaching, leadership development, and nonprofit management. Tune in to discover practical advice on overcoming common challenges, setting fair compensation, and implementing innovative work practices.

Sean Kosofsky is a seasoned expert in nonprofit leadership, known widely as "The Nonprofit Fixer." With a career spanning over three decades, Sean has dedicated his life to strengthening nonprofit organizations through strategic coaching, consulting, and training. He has a particular passion for supporting executive directors and has developed a range of digital tools, including courses and templates, to help nonprofits thrive. Sean’s expertise covers a broad spectrum of nonprofit challenges, from fundraising and board management to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). His practical approach and deep understanding of the sector make him a sought-after coach and consultant.

Connect with Sean on LinkedIn
The Nonprofit Fixer
@nonprofitfixer - X and Instagram
@MindtheGapC - Facebook

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Transcript

>> Julia Campbell: 0:00

A massive transfer of wealth is right around the corner, and your constituent base is changing. Are your fundraising efforts ready? Well, Qgive surveyed donors of all ages to create the generational giving report, a, comprehensive guide to help you best connect with constituents of all generations. To learn how new generations want to support you, hear from you, and stay connected with you, head to jcsocialmarketing.com qgive to be notified when the report is released and to receive your copy. That is jcsocialmarketing Qgive QgIV to be notified when the report is released. I'm so excited to read the findings. And now on to the episode. Hello and welcome to Nonprofit Nation. I'm your host, Julia Campbell, and I'm gonna 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 visibility, reach more people, and create even more impact, ah, then you're in the right place. Let's get started. Hi, everyone. This is nonprofit nation with your host, Julia Campbell. Thanks so much for being here today. Today we're going to talk about leadership, specifically how to transform nonprofit leadership, executive leadership, and nonprofit management. And my guest today is Shawn Kosofsky. And Sean's known widely as the nonprofit fixer, and he's a seasoned expert in nonprofit leadership. With a career spanning over three decades, Shawn has dedicated his life to strengthening nonprofits through strategic coaching, consulting, and training. And he has a particular passion for supporting executive directors. And through that passion, has developed a range of, digital tools, including courses and templates, all to help nonprofits thrive. So his expertise covers a, ah, broad spectrum of nonprofit challenges. He is called the nonprofit fixer. So I love that. From fundraising and board management to diversity, equity and inclusion, and his practical approach and deep understanding of the sector make him a sought after coach and consultant. So, Sean, welcome to the podcast.

>> Shawn Kosofsky: 2:55

I'm so excited to be here.

>> Julia Campbell: 2:57

Yes, I am so thrilled. So, as an executive coach, you have written on your blog that nonprofit leaders, they're sort of often thrown into the deep end without adequate preparation. So I guess maybe my first question would be, how did you come to focus on executive coaching? And then what are some of the gaps that you see in the training and support for executive leaders?

>> Shawn Kosofsky: 3:24

Well, I sort of learned how to run a nonprofit by watching it be done wrong. My boss in my twenties was also my best friend. He was a magnificent and terrific strategist and activist, but really was not the best executive director because no one had job descriptions. People were burning out left and right. he had a giant pile on his desk and glamorized that kind of lifestyle. There were things going on in the organization that were probably pretty unprofessional. And so I watched all this, and I was like, you know, if I ever were to lead a nonprofit, I'm going to really think about if this is the way I want to lead, or if I'm going to try to really professionalize things, because I could do the safe thing, which is hunker down in the program work, which is fun and exciting and interesting, or I could go learn and lean into the areas that I don't quite know well, like finance and like, really investing in fundraising and compliance and all these different things. So that's sort of where I got interested in it. And then in my first executive director job, I was really excited and really freaked out about what I didn't know, and I wanted to read all these books, and people were saying, don't do that. Just interview a few executive directors about what they wish they knew on the first day that they didn't know. that's smart. It was such a smart thing. It was way faster. So I interviewed five or six eds. They gave me ten answers to ten questions each, and a lot of it came down to build relationship with your board. Fundraise. Fundraise. Fundraise. Don't waste time on things that don't matter. Right. Like, just really, there's none of this stuff that I see in 19. Sorry. In 2008, when I became an executive director, none of this that I see in a compact, easy, simple way to digest. Anywhere you had to take a master's program or read books and books and books. And I really wanted to take all of this knowledge, distill it down, and help people accelerate their learning and their leadership more quickly through coaching and through courses.

>> Julia Campbell: 5:12

That's so funny you said that because I got my master's in public administration because I thought I wanted to be an executive director, and I thought that's what you had to do. And, yeah, taking a master's program rather than what you're saying is just some like a very, very simple, almost succinct way of like, addressing the challenges and figuring out what you're going to need. And I did a very similar thing when I was a development director. I'd never been a development director. I'd worked in fundraising and marketing, but I had never been the vice president of development. So I talked to quite a few other development directors just about what are the things I really need to know? What are your favorite resources and tools? So I think that is so smart. And you say that eds and leadership, they're thrown into the deep end. And I completely agree with you, because the organizations that I work with, I think what tends to happen is there's not that pipeline in the nonprofit sector. It's sort of like there's. You're a program officer. If you do great at that, maybe you're going to be a development director. If you do great at that, maybe you're going to be an executive director. It's not really like you grow up and you want to be an executive director. Are you kind of seeing something similar?

>> Shawn Kosofsky: 6:26

Yeah, I think that the path to executive director could be someone's really excited. They become a founder. They create the thing. They have no management or leadership experience, but people are very entrepreneurial and nonprofits, I always say nonprofit leaders are entrepreneurs. They are out of nothing. Every single day. We have a clear vision. We marshal all the resources, and we go make it right. We are entrepreneurs, but a lot of people end up there because they see a need. They create something. Maybe their child is impacted by a disease or a death, and they create this nonprofit, and all of a sudden they want to leave their job to dedicate their. So that's one path in or from a development director, or sometimes people leave the board because there's a crisis in leadership, and they join as ed. There's so many paths from the private sector or from government or wherever to the executive director. And when I say thrown in the deep end, it is because there is literally no roadmap. There is no roadmap. There is no guide or manual. Your bosses are volunteers that don't work there. They don't know how the job is run. They're expecting you to just grab the keys and go win us our social justice. Right? So they literally have no roadmap there. So I created courses and resources and tools to give people a roadmap, literally. I have a infographic about the ten top responsibilities you need to nail to know this job. Unless you're running a private foundation, these are the ten things you need to know, and this is how you need to know them so that you can run any nonprofit confidently in the United States. And so having those roadmaps for people just demystifies all of it. But they are just, we are just completely thrown in, and we are building the plane as we fly it. And a lot of people should not have to do that when our missions are so important.

>> Julia Campbell: 7:56

Yes, and everyone's going to be kind of chomping at the bit for all of this. So the website is nonprofitfixer.com, and you can find all of Sean's resources there. We'll talk about that more later. But in your experience, what are the most critical leadership skills that nonprofit executive directors need to develop?

>> Shawn Kosofsky: 8:17

I think some of the most important skills that they need to develop are things like negotiation. So as a nonprofit executive director, negotiating an employment contract, negotiating better conditions, you know, just negotiating a four day workweek, like, all the things we want for ourselves, but no burnout, more payrol, a better work life balance. Being able to negotiate with a board and being able to negotiate with your fiscal sponsor, being able to negotiate with all these different people, that is a critical skill. So being able to ask, being able to stand your ground, being able to know your worth, that is a critical skill. another one of the things I think people need to know as an executive director are some of these really soft skills. Right? You need empathy. You need to be able to lean into conflict. A lot of people do not like conflict. Being a manager or being a director means you have to get results. You're not here to be liked. You're here to get results. The board wants you to get results. Your stakeholders want you to get results. And that means you sometimes will not be liked. People will respect you if you lead with excellence and you lead with quality and you lead with compassion. But you do need to have difficult conversations. I've had difficult conversations with employees. For me, I'm very comfortable saying to someone, your performance isn't where I need it to be. Let's work on a plan to get you where I need you to be. Or maybe a different role or maybe some other organization is where you'll end up career wise. But what our mission needs, what this moment needs, is someone who can deliver this. Are you here for it? Let's work on this. Right. So having those difficult conversations is one of the most important things eds can do. In addition to fundraising and building rapport with your board. If you don't like your board, you avoid them. You won't spend that time to build a relationship with them. And they are the owners of the corporation. They control your job. You need to build a rapport with your board, and that is a critical skill.

>> Julia Campbell: 9:58

Yes. And I serve on the school board here, and we hire fire, evaluate the superintendent, and it's exactly the same kind of mentality. If we all do not have a, working relationship, a respectful relationship, then, nothing can possibly get done. And I've worked in organizations where the executive director, like you just said, wanted nothing to do with the board, wanted me to handle the board completely as the director of development, wanted not even to attend the meetings, had so many personality conflicts, and it was really, really challenging. But. So let's dive into that more. What would your advice be for an executive director who is maybe a founder and doesn't have sort of these soft skills or they have them, but they tend to want to avoid conflict or avoid contentious situations. And what, you know, they're being kind of thrown into this role where they do have to negotiate and they do have to tackle these critical issues and give performance reviews. What's some advice that you would give someone like that?

>> Shawn Kosofsky: 11:03

Well, on, soft skills, it's really difficult to learn that through trainings. You really should be working with a coach. If it's a hard skill, like fundraising, or if it's a hard skill like understanding financial statements or understanding your 990, these are things you can take classes on. I'm m a huge believer in coaching because I have worked with coaches. They have been invaluable to me during my life. And you get this personalized, customized attention that is specifically what you need in the moment. Like coaching to the moment, right? Not these, like, broad theory things. I also got my master's program. A lot of it was theory, right? A lot of it is like, the academic research behind why we make the decisions we make. And almost all the research captured and all of this theory in your master's program was based on really, really large nonprofits, and that is not how the country like, yes, nonprofits, 90% of them are under $600,000. The vast majority are not captured in the research. But, you know, you read these textbooks about strategic planning. Year one, do this. Year two, who has time for all, like, who is, like, do an assessment, do a field, and who has time for all this stuff, right? I'm going to do a weekend, we're going to hash this out, and we're going to have a plan, right? So the master's program is not going to deliver what you need to learn in the moment, and the fights are changing. So we're after advocacy. Like, I've been in advocacy my whole life, I'm not doing soup kitchen work. I'm not doing a community garden. I'm doing advocacy. And the enemies are changing every day. The fights are changing. Everything's happening faster, so you need to be able to pivot more quickly all the time, the technology is changing. So I really believe coaching is the key. Whether it's group coaching or one on one coaching, there are many, many options out there. I offer this, but lots of other folks are doing it. But I do believe, you know, the difference between consulting and coaching is consulting tend to be experts, and coaches don't. Are not subject matter experts, but they're really good at coaching. Right. But if you can find someone who is a subject matter expert or someone who knows nonprofits and they're a coach, right. They're a consultant and a coach, you're in that sweet spot. There's a few of us in the field who specialize on executive directors who have been in the trenches. so I really believe coaching is the key.

>> Julia Campbell: 13:04

Yeah, I completely agree with you about how it's pivoting, because you can take an online course, and that's great for a hard skill. But if you're having a crisis of conscience over something, you need to talk about it right now. And an online course is not going to help you do that. Or I think about COVID Think about the way things are changing so quickly. We're in an election year, you know, just, the way people. And like you said, technology and just the, landscape is shifting so quickly. That's a really good point. So let's talk about salary and benefits. That can be kind of a contentious topic. I hate the overhead myth that we should not be paying people fairly. So how should nonprofits approach executive compensation? Sort of in a fair and transparent way.

>> Shawn Kosofsky: 13:53

This is going to hurt some people's ears to hear this, but at the end of the day, which is an expression I use a lot but hate, at the end of the day, what we need to make a decision about is what we prioritize and if we prioritize retention, if we prioritize humans. As a nonprofit leader, you need to think about the mission 24 hours a day, all the time. The number one thing, all decisions are run through, what is in the best interest of the mission. But the other part of this is humans. I need to know what's best for the mission and best for the people helping us get to the mission. It's not about software. It's not about your offices. It's not about the climate it's not about all these other factors that impact things. It is about how do I take care of the people working for the mission and how do I achieve the mission. All decisions work on that, and that means compensating people so that they stick around, that they feel valued, and that they want to stay here. Even if your staff ends up being smaller, but you have four rock, stars instead of six underpaid burnout people. I'm a big believer that compensation is something you have to talk about as a priority, as a value. You bake it into your budget. You push back on funders who think that pay is overhead. It takes money to run programs. People are not overhead. People are not overhead.

>> Julia Campbell: 15:03

Being overhead, we need shirts. People want to know what that means. Regular people, but people are not overhead.

>> Shawn Kosofsky: 15:11

And, you know, for me, compensation, is important. So I think one of the most important things, I just came out with a course a couple months ago called 25 tips for more pay and less stress for executive directors. It's on my website. We'll include the link. So it's about creating your own job description. Once you're an Ed, you get to create your job description with the board. So you get to create how you're evaluated every year. That's a powerful thing. You get to create your own job evaluation. Normally, boards don't give you an evaluation. Can you help us create one?

>> Julia Campbell: 15:38

Great.

>> Shawn Kosofsky: 15:39

I have one I sell on my website. I wrote it from the perspective of an executive director being evaluated, this is how I want to be measured. Please, let's use this 360, and then you can also insist on an employment contract. I'm one of the few people out there screaming about employment contracts. I have two clients right now who might be losing their job even though they've been there years and years and years. One client for 26 years has done nothing wrong ever. And one or two board members are really potentially going to cause a career ending mistake for this executive director because she doesn't have, an employment contract. You should never lose your job unless it's for cause, right? Should never be fired unless it's for misconduct. And so to protect the organization, to protect your family, your reputation, your salary, your mortgage, all of that, you should have an employment contract. It costs $0 to get costs, the agency or the organization $0. Protect what you've built with an employment contract. And then when it comes to compensation, laying out the data and saying, here's what I believe I'm worth. We're all working in ways that the private sector doesn't have to. We absorb this pain of our clients. We absorb all of this stuff in the world about the climate. you know, climate change are really, really hard, and they are taxing. So we deserve to be compensated at a level that we are not apologizing for, not saying ridiculous amounts, but we need to stop apologizing for it and start actually raising the money and paying people what they're worth.

>> Julia Campbell: 16:56

How can we advocate for better pay and benefits? And what are some specific benefits, you think, that are essential to retain top talent, not even necessarily eds, but all top talent and nonprofits?

>> Shawn Kosofsky: 17:11

Well, I think that the first thing is we need to stop the poverty mindset that we are corporations. We are not for profit corporations, but we are corporations. I spent way too long assuming that we should make less money and we shouldn't earn as much. And there are nonprofits that probably, understandably so, will make a decision to earn less because of different things going on in their cause. Maybe you're like a Zen buddhist temple, or maybe like, I have clients that are doing work in all these different spaces, and they made a decision to pay everyone less because they get to have free lodging or they get to have a spiritual experience. I get it. But across the sector in general, we need to push back on, every potential stakeholder that this poverty mindset that we should make less, we should earn less, and that somehow we have to continue sacrificing our families and our future for this cause. It just doesn't make any sense to me. So that's one thing, setting expectations. The other thing in terms of benefits in addition to salary, everyone's, of course, unfortunately, because we don't have, you know, single payer healthcare plan in the United States, we need to be asking our employer for either compensation for us to go out on the marketplace and get healthcare, or for them to cover healthcare. We absolutely need that. If you are a spouse or domestic partner or someone has healthcare and you don't need it, great. Move those benefits to something else. Get covered by your employer for something else. But I definitely think salary, I think benefits, if you can get a four day workweek, I have found that that is really powerful. I think that you can get people who are considering two offers to jump for you because they get Fridays off. I have seen employees refuse to leave because they have this four day work week. So the retention, the attraction is sometimes better than dollars, is giving people the flexibility of changing their lives with a four day workweek. The other thing is having your cell phone covered, getting tuition reimbursement, getting a retirement plan. Sometimes the employer can actually implement a retirement plan for free or for dollar 500 a year to allow people to start putting away for their retirement. The final thing I would say is, some employers are lucky enough to have this, but having life insurance, you know, this doesn't cost a lot for the organization, but gives people peace of mind. Right. So it really all depends on the issue in the part of the country that you're working in. But these are a range of things you can throw at the problem. But if you don't have a lot of money, an employment contract gives you security, and the 40 work week also costs $0. Gives people a sense of like, oh, my God, I get to work someplace where I have a three day weekend.

>> Julia Campbell: 19:31

Let's talk about the four day workweek, because I have a feeling a lot of my listeners got really excited about it, but then also immediately said, we can't do it. That would not work for us for a wide variety of reasons. So what are some of the challenges that you see in implementing this model, and how do you work with your clients to sort of overcome them?

>> Shawn Kosofsky: 19:54

So I implemented the four day workweek at a national climate change think tank that I was leading, nationwide. We implemented it in 2022. So I think that the mindset that we can't do it is. I appreciate the apprehension, but you need to think it through. We did some research, and then we practiced for three months, holding Fridays as a day that had no meetings. So we practiced. We did a pilot. First we practiced, then we did a pilot. So we practiced for three months, imagining that there were no meetings on Friday and that you could not ask any team member for help on Friday, you literally, when you said, I'll get this to you by end of week, that meant Thursday at five, right? Or even sooner. So all of your deadlines kind of sped up. It meant moving all of your personal appointments, doctors, vet visits, all these things to Friday. Your stuff is now on your, on your Friday because now, Monday through Friday, we own your time because we need to get everything done in four days. So we did some practicing for a couple months, then we did a pilot, we rolled it out. We told stakeholders and our membership and everyone, we are now doing a four day work week. This means we are going to slash meetings in half, we're going to have fewer meetings, we're going to have all of our meetings are cut in half, we're going to move to asynchronous work, and we're going to stop participating in coalitions that aren't bearing any fruit. We're going to be merciless with our time to get all of the work down to four days because we don't have time to be wasting on an issue like climate change. Also, people could say, oh, this is an issue that we couldn't work on. Everything's so urgent. No, I think this specifically implementing the four day workweek helped us get top talent and retain top talent for a while. Anyone can do it. It doesn't mean everyone does the same fourth day, the fifth day. Right. So sometimes if you have people working in shifts or you work at a small firm where you're doing customer support or something, not everyone will have the same four days because you need coverage. Right.

>> Julia Campbell: 21:40

Oh, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense.

>> Shawn Kosofsky: 21:42

Yeah. There's a way to think through this.

>> Julia Campbell: 21:43

There's, like, a food bank. Like, you can't be open seven days. Right.

>> Shawn Kosofsky: 21:47

Right. So there's a way to think through where, is there going to be a gap? What is an acceptable gap in our mission and to our stakeholders, and then work through that? But some workers can do the four day work week for sure.

>> Julia Campbell: 21:59

I think that's so interesting. I've seen that a lot in businesses. even small businesses, larger businesses doing the four day workweek, even giving more benefits, such as working from home or being able to maybe start later, work later, have more flexible hours. I think this would be possible for quite a few nonprofits. Of course, if you're running shelter, ah. Or something like that, you do need the specific people there for specific hours. But I love what you said about it. Doesn't have to, not everybody has to have the same four days. Like, you can just decide what the four days are and that, you know, that you are committed to working those four days. I keep trying to give myself a four day work week, and it never works, but I feel like. I feel like, and I'm my own boss, right. And I should just tell myself, like, we just need to do it.

>> Shawn Kosofsky: 22:49

I definitely do. No meeting Mondays. I think one of the ways that I reduce stress in my job is I don't do a 40 work week right now because my business is still sort of, like, in a. An earlier phase. But I've, made a decision to work a lot on it because I enjoy it and I love it. But I do make sure that Mondays I have no meetings. I get caught up so quickly by having no meetings. I do control my calendar. So I do say Mondays is a day to get caught up, I'm on writing blogs, writing content, doing email. I do not let meetings creep in at all because they destroy productivity. So I have Mondays as the day, and I start the whole week feeling completely caught up. So the whole week feels less stressful. so that's another thing that people can do is, like, have control over your calendar and don't schedule meetings on one. When you have 7 hours straight or 8 hours straight with no meetings, you fly through your productivity.

>> Julia Campbell: 23:34

Did you read the book free time by Jenny Blake? It's a fantastic book. Yeah, it's a great book. She's been on my podcast as well, so, yeah, free time by Jenny Blake. And if, you want to listen to the episode, it's in the archives. But she completely transformed the way that I organize my calendar. So I try to block off Mondays and Fridays, no meetings, and I block off, she does the first week, and the last week of every month, just blocks it off. And she sort of, if there has to be a meeting on there. But when you send out your calendar link, there's always these, like, very condensed chunks, like when I batch podcast recordings or things like that. It really has helped me because, like you said, meetings and things like constant cognitive switching, it really impacts your productivity and your concentration. And then also, I know for me, I just. It impacts the happiness that I have around the work that I'm doing. So, yeah, there are all these kinds of tips, and I think that's really a great place where a coach could come in because I would never have thought of that. You know, I would never have thought of that myself. I would never have had the courage to really implement that myself. So I think that's another. That's another sort of, like, really important benefit of coaching and having someone on your side who understands your unique situation. Right.

>> Shawn Kosofsky: 24:53

I think coaches have seen a million situations, right? So they're like, oh, they draw from, oh, here's something someone else tried. This is totally possible. And they help you with perspective taking. They help you with limiting beliefs. They help you with what's possible. And so, hopefully, if you have a good coach, they have seen a lot of things. I've, been an ed five times, so I. But all in small nonprofits, but I do coach much larger nonprofit eds, and I've seen a lot of things happen, and so a, good coach can help show you that another way is possible.

>> Julia Campbell: 25:21

So, in your experience, what qualities distinguish a truly successful and, like, thriving nonprofit leader from one that's just kind of.

>> Shawn Kosofsky: 25:32

Surviving balance is one of them. I really do believe that. if you look exasperated, if you look exhausted, if you look like you don't have any kind of balance that spills out into the organizational culture, but if you are not taking non urgent calls during the weekend and in the evening, you're sending a signal to people that this is your boundaries for your career. I think that that sends a message out. You don't want to create a culture where everyone on your team feels like they need to impress the executive director or their manager by working around the clock. You don't want to send that message. Another thing that makes an exceptional nonprofit leader is being self aware. I really believe you need to know what you don't know. You need to know where you're weak. And that means getting annual reviews. It means asking for feedback. All the time. I've had my employees tell me, like, there's two seans. There's executive Sean, and there's, you know, entrepreneurial Sean. Executive Sean is like, I'm really decisive and I'm like, I'm going to break ties. I'm going to move us down. I'm going to try to move us forward. And the entrepreneurial Sean is, I have lots of ideas. I tell my team, lots of ideas. Do not think because I m mentioned these, that I'm asking you to do them or it'll be in a team meeting. I'm like, well, have we thought about this? And what about this idea? Some people can hear an executive director say something and they think they need to go do it right. And so I need to be careful about everything I say as an executive director, being taken with a huge amount of weight. So I'll just talk with my team and say, just because I'm throwing these things out, it means I'm kind of riffing. You'll learn more about me, but it's those soft skills that I think are really important. Like, I've had to learn over time that I can sometimes be short in my email communications and to not make people think I'm upset with them. I'll say yes or no in an email and people will be like, oh, is he mad at me? He didn't, he didn't, like, start the fluffy friendliness, you know? And so, being self aware of where you are showing up without executive presence or where you are showing up in a way that is impacting team morale or team performance and looking to go and prove those things, but seeking input regularly from your board, from your staff, from your stakeholders, I think that that's really important for an excellent nonprofit leader. But also, I really do believe you have to model good behavior. The things you want your team to do, you do need to be doing it. So that's really important.

>> Julia Campbell: 27:34

Oh, my gosh. Model good behavior. I'm thinking of all the bosses that I've had, some that did that, some that did not do that. And I'm just. I'm really now thinking about all of the directors that I've worked with, and I have managed teams at my organizations, too, when I was director of development, director of marketing. And I think that's probably my number one, is it's sort of like, be the change you want to see in the world. Model what you want to see. Kindness, empathy, understanding. If you want to model respect for people, I think that's just so important. I'm thinking now I'm riffing, and you're giving me lots of ideas, too, and I do that, too, where I have a ton of ideas, and I feel like, okay, no, I don't have to execute on every single idea that I have.

>> Shawn Kosofsky: 28:24

I will say one more thing, which is about prioritization, because very often, executive directors think they need to do everything or they think they want to go do the stuff. That's interesting. And what I've said to myself constantly is, I am here to achieve the mission. I have a job to do, and I might want to write that newsletter. I might want to curl up with the budget and finesse it. So it's a beautiful, polished budget or this board report. But the best use of my energy as the highest paid person in the organization is to not waste my time on things that I can delegate. If I can delegate this or push this work down to someone else or give it or outsource it, I need to. So there's work that you can just find fun or interesting or cathartic or whatever it is, and you need to keep asking yourself, I'm the highest paid person here. I need to be judicious with my time. No one is watching me. So I need to decide, what is a priority and what needs to wait or be outsourced or just delegated, because that's one of the critical things that executive directors get wrong, is to not prioritize.

>> Julia Campbell: 29:20

Absolutely. We're living in interesting times. I mean, we are. I guess all times are interesting times. But right now there, you know, inflation is increasing. There's an election on the horizon. I feel like every day there's a new report about how charitable giving is down, and people don't have as much money to give. With all of this going on, I do feel like nonprofits, are really struggling. So what advice would you, would you give to someone listening in the leadership position if they really feel stuck and they really feel kind of hopeless?

>> Shawn Kosofsky: 29:59

Sometimes we just need to have perspective whenever we think the moment we're in is the worst. Whether you're looking at the political climate right now, if you're looking at the actual climate right now, if you're looking at the polarization of our society, in some ways, I'm a big fan of, white Lotus, right? That tv episode in White Lotus season two, where the young woman is like, portia, is saying how horrible the world is. Don't you watch the news? Everything's right. He's like, there's never been a better time to be alive. We're living longer. There are fewer wars. We have more enjoyment. People can get anywhere within hours. He's like, the world is better than it has ever been. And I tend to look at that episode, and I think about as much as we want to focus on the moment we're in being really tough, there are more people adding to the pool of potential donors every day. Our photographs is getting smarter and faster and allowing us to do more. Every day, every single day, I see optimism, I see opportunity. I see abundance, and I just see an opportunity to engage a million people in this work. I think that the herd will be thinned a little bit. The organizations that cannot make it will thin out. And that means that the market isn't ready for what they're serving, and that is not a sign of failure. It might just mean that your time has come and gone. But if you're an organization that is struggling, just, really just sit back and say, what if we actually stayed smaller? What if this constant urge to scale is not practical? I have run an organization before where I said, what if we stay at three staff? What if we don't grow to 4510 15, like everyone's telling us, like everyone pushes scale? What if you decide to stay small? That I only need three staff to do and let other groups in the ecosystem to pick up, pick up the slack. I'm not going to burn out. I'm not going to kill myself, over trying to scale all the time. I'm going to be comfortably be small, and that reduces the stress. I don't have to raise all this money for an expensive, bloated core of benefits and staff and offices and just decide to be small. That should be okay, and that relieves the stress. And sometimes it's just okay. It's going to have to be enough because you don't have the capacity to get to ten or 50 staff.

>> Julia Campbell: 31:58

Wow. I think that's so valuable. There is this constant pressure to grow, to scale, to raise more money, to build more buildings, to do more, to do more. And certainly for some nonprofits, they might need to do that if the need is increasing. But it's like you said, do it smartly, do it very strategically, meaningfully. Think about what you're doing, and think about whether or not this is the moment that you need to do it in. Maybe there's, you know, maybe it's something down the line. I love that. That just made me so happy. I'm going to go back and listen to that because we were talking before we started recording just about the political climate, and I was saying how I was feeling sort of down about it, but everything you just said, and I'm a huge fan of white lotus, and I love that scene. This, you know, he's sort of like, count your blessings, but realize that there is so much opportunity and abundance, and people are giving. People are being generous, people are helping their neighbors, they are volunteering. They're doing what they need to be doing to make their communities better. So the abundance mindset or the scarcity mindset, we really do have to choose. And I do know that a lot, so many nonprofits are focused on that scarcity mindset that you talked about. And I think if we can shift to an opportunity and abundance mindset, even when it's really difficult, that is going to help us. And it's going to actually maybe help us hopefully, like, manifest good things, because I believe in that, too. So my second to last question, what are some emerging trends if we're kind of looking ahead in the nonprofit sector that you believe are really going to be key in shaping all of our futures?

>> Shawn Kosofsky: 33:43

I really do believe the 40 work week is coming, and people need to be prepared for this because I get Google alerts on this every day for the past two years, and I watch this and I see all the countries and all the companies and all the experiments and all the tests. People are moving to this. There are bills in Congress, there are bills in the Senate. There are bills all over the world. People are trying to push labor unions, the UAW strike. I'm from Detroit, so I watched the UAW strike really closely, and they were pushing for the four day workweek. Didn't get it, but they were pushing like it's changing the national conversation. Greece this week just like, insisted on a 48 hours work week for some workers are actually moving in the opposite direction. But most of the world is moving in a direction of thinking about labor differently and thinking about rest differently. So one of the trends I do believe people need to be thinking about is either moving in this direction or your competitors. When I say competitors, I just mean, like other people trying to employ and hire your staff are going to be moving in this direction. If you want to get and retain the best employees, offering this costs you $0, which is something we can do in nonprofits. We can offer things for $0 and compete with the private sector sector, right. Because we can give them more work life balance. So maybe they can go make money on that fifth day, or they can go actually rest on that fifth day. So that's one trend is the four day workweek is coming another trend, I think that's really happening right now that I think is really important. And, it sounds really cliche, but I'm really looking forward to what AI is going to do for us that we don't yet know. I mean, there's a lot of like, oh, AI to make your pictures on canva or AI to do this, but I think the best is yet to come. I think that there is going to be an awakening that we are going to be able to do things so much faster. And instead of being more productive, I'm hoping AI will allow some of us to actually take a beat and take a break and say, we have invested. We were waiting for this moment. We don't have to constantly be more productive. We literally could be less productive because we are having things in motion to make ourselves more productive. We need to think about balance more than just how much productivity can we squeeze out of workers and our organizations. We really do need to retain. So I look forward in 2025 to us finally starting to see some tools from AI that are making a meaningful difference in reducing spam and trimming our meetings and allowing decks to be created more quickly and just not. We're going to find out, there's a lot of time that can be saved, and that time is literally should be pushed toward rest.

>> Julia Campbell: 36:05

You're going to have to come back on the podcast and we're going to have to do a deep dive into how to start and implement a four day workweek, because I think people are just going to love that. I don't know if you have any resources on your website, but that's my next question. Where can people find you? Learn more about you, connect with you?

>> Shawn Kosofsky: 36:19

I definitely did a course, a, training, like a mini course, like an hour and a half on how to implement the four day workweek. There is a blog on my website@nonprofitfixer.com, dot. Anyone can find everything from me on nonprofitfixer.com, but my guide is free on my website. And then I do a course to lay out even more specifically with backup and data and citations, how to do the four day workweek and how we pulled it off. And so you can go to nonprofitfixer.com, comma check out the blog and you will learn some of that. I have lots of free tools on my website, lots of blogs, lots of paid tools and courses. So that's where folks can find out more. And I would love to come back and talk through the four day workweek.

>> Julia Campbell: 36:56

Yes, thank you so much. This has been fantastic. Really energizing. And as we record this, we're going actually into a holiday weekend, but this kind of the kick in the butt that I needed. So I can only imagine working with you one on one as coach. I'm sure it's fantastic. But thank you again so much for being here. And I'm going to list all of your fabulous resources in the show notes.

>> Shawn Kosofsky: 37:20

Awesome. Thank you for having me.

>> Julia Campbell: 37:28

Well, hey there. I wanted to say thank you 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 a 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. Juliacampbell 77 keep changing the world, you nonprofit unicorn.