This 2025 offers a lot of opportunities for social profit leaders to make a real difference in their communities and even the entire world. In this episode, Douglas Nelson dives deep into his expertise in the social profit sector to share valuable insights on elevating leadership and driving positive change. He shares seven powerful resolutions designed to help maximize your impact and lead your entire organization to success. From rethinking the end of your fiscal year, connecting with two donors per week, to slaying your lingering “zombie issues,” Douglas offers practical advice and fresh perspectives that will truly inspire and empower social profit leaders everywhere.
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Resolutions For Social Profit Leaders With Douglas Nelson, Host
Stay Curious In Your Organization
I’m excited to share seven resolutions for social profit leaders. These resolutions go beyond eating a little bit less exercise, a little bit more, drinking a little bit less, being more present, and meditating every morning. All of those resolutions I assume you’ve made, and by the time you are reading this, some of you may have already broken.
These are seven resolutions for social profit leaders that are actionable. Questions, tactics, and tools that you can use to help leverage your leadership and bring out the exceptional nature of your organization. The first one, stay curious about your organization. As you come back from the break, focus on what is working, and what areas are moving forward. Where is collaboration flourishing in the organization? Where are partnership and exceptionality the norm in the organization? Alternatively, what isn’t working? What barriers is your team encountering? Are there themes in those barriers? Is there something below the surface that you can address that may remove those barriers for you and your colleagues? Be curious about what is happening in your organization and worry less about the specific answers right out of the gate. Continue to ask questions about what is working and what is not working quite as well.
Treat The End Of The Fiscal Year As Leverage Point
Number two, treat the end of the fiscal year as a leverage point rather than treating the fiscal year end for many of you, which is March 31st, some of you June 30th, rather than emphasizing it as a deadline, all the activities we need to do to be successful to the end of the fiscal year. Look at that end of the fiscal year as a leverage point at the beginning of the next year, the excitement, the enthusiasm, the potential for what the year ahead holds, and then work back to the, to and say, “What is it we need to do over the final 3 or 6 months of this fiscal year in order to be successful?” Focus on moving to a leverage point, to an acceleration point rather than a deadline, a finish line.
One of the common themes we have heard so much of in our sector over the last number of years is burnout and the mental fatigue and exhaustion that many leaders and professionals are feeling. Part of that is due to, the sense that we are always running as fast as we can while holding our breath to the next deadline, to the next finish line anything leaders can do to show that the progress of our work is about a long-term story, a long-term trajectory towards our organizational purpose, the more fulfilling it will be and the less exhausting it will be for you as a leader, your leadership team, and everyone in your organization. Use that end of the fiscal year, not as a deadline, but as a point of leverage.
Use the end of the fiscal year not as a deadline but as a point of leverage.
Contact Two Donors Per Week
The third resolution for social profit leaders for 2025 is critically important. I want to encourage all of you to call two donors per week. Pick up the phone and call 2 donors per week and send 1 handwritten card. Write it out. Write thank you. It could be someone who’s been a 5 or 10-year donor, someone who’s made their first gift, or someone who’s made a gift again for the first time in a long time.
Regardless of the amount. Take that time to handwrite that card. It’s going to help you see your organization through the lens of your donors, and what you hear in those phone calls with donors. It’s going to encourage you to see how donors see your organization, which will help you as a leader to observe what’s happening to make changes and accelerate what’s working well.
Also, the more conversations you have with donors allow you to use what I refer to as one of the very few magic wands we have in leadership as it relates to the social profit sector. As a leader, being able to say, “When I talk to donors, I hear. When I talk to donors, they ask. When I talk to donors, they share.” Having that direct connection to the donors who support your organization helps you to identify what is best about your organization, what may need change, and also in conversations with members of your board, members of your leadership team, and members of the entire organization, you are able to share the perspective of donors and what your organization means to those donors. It gives you credibility as the leader of the organization, and it’s going to help you raise a lot more money along the way. Call 2 donors per week and send 1 handwritten card.
Ask Yourself Four Questions Of Effective Board Engagement
Number four, ask yourself the four questions of effective board engagement. This is something we talk a lot about here at the Discovery Group. Those of you who read An Effective Board Retreat episode earlier here in 2024. We’ll tackle similar questions to this, but the four questions that you should ask your board for effective engagement are, what do we need the board to know in order to provide the best advice they can and the best oversight they can for the organization? What is the information? What is the trend? What is the evolving issue or issues in your organization that your board needs to have a deep and intimate understanding of in order to do their best work?
Determine what your board needs to know so they can provide the best advice and oversight for the organization.
The second question is, is there something you need your board to start doing? Is there something that you need them to be more open to facilitating relationship developments as you are preparing for a campaign or preparing for fundraising for a particular initiative? Are there government relations or advocacy activities you need them to undertake in their role as ambassadors around the board table? Is it acting differently than they have in the past? Meaning do we need them to step up and show what a governance board does as they shed some of the operational responsibilities that they may have had in previous years?
The third question to think about is what seeds do you need to plant? What do you see on the horizon for your organization? What are the questions, the issues that the board is likely to be considering throughout 2025 or even beyond, and what do they need to know now? Plant those seeds about issues that are coming so that they feel more familiar when they encounter you along the way over the next year.
Fourth, is there something you need the board to stop doing? Usually, when I ask clients those questions, they say, “No, there’s nothing I need.” Maybe after some time to think it would be helpful if, and this is particularly true in organizations where you’ve got a board that’s saying they are a governance board and they still have a marketing and communications committee, or they have a fundraising oversight committee, or they have a committee that is fulfilling the function of an operational function within the organization.
Name And Slay Zombie Issues
At whatever level it should be staff making those recommendations in the board, ensuring the process is followed rather than the board making those decisions. Is there something you need the board to stop doing? This can be helpful in understanding zombie issues, which moves us to the fifth resolution for the year, which is to name and slay the zombie issues in your organization.
When we say zombie issues, we are talking about those like the old slasher movies where Jason’s been put down in the ground and lightning strikes and he comes rising out of the ground. These issues you think you’ve dealt with as an organization are these hard choices you’ve had to make over the course, sometimes of many years. You’ve made those choices and board members or members of the organization or essential partners in your organization bring those issues back up. They come rising.
They often come rising at some challenging, difficult times in board decisions, board deliberations around budgets, strategic planning, around approvals related to significant organizational change. Encourage you at the start of here, of 2025, to identify what those zombie issues are in your organization, and almost every organization has at least one. Sometimes the zombies aren’t that scary, sometimes they are terrifying. Have the courage to proactively pull the monster out from under the bed let the bedroom light shine on and deal with that issue as soon as possible.
Identify the zombie issues in your organization. Pull them out from under the bed, let the bedroom light shine on them, and deal with it as soon as possible.
For CEOs that are concerned about appearing defensive with their boards, one of the best ways to do that is to be proactive at these long lingering issues around your board table or within your organization, is to lead out and say, “This is something we need to resolve. It’s holding us back. It’s acting as a brake on our progress. It’s preventing us from being what we can be. Let’s deal with this now.” Rather than others bringing it up, who may be doing it to distract or because we are uncomfortable with change, proactively bring out those zombies, and deal with them in the middle of the boardroom. Don’t let these things linger because they will come back.
Number six, review all of your organizational KPIs or Key Performance Indicators if you are using them. We like to refer to them as measures of success. Review all your KPIs and measures of success with an eye towards reducing the number that you and your leadership or team are tracking and that you are reporting to your board.
Social Profit Leaders: Review all your KPIs and measures of success with an eye toward reducing the number you and your leadership team are tracking.
One of the big common themes I see in organizations where the board and management are somewhat at loggerheads or there’s a bit of misalignment, there’s often a long list of KPIs or measurements that are being reported at the board on a quarterly or a monthly, even a monthly basis. The challenge is when those numbers don’t reflect the act or aren’t particularly relevant to the underlying business of the organization, they are not measuring client success. They are not measuring fundraising performance in any real way.
Board members are getting numbers, but they are feeling like they are not getting the full story. Management feels like they are reporting a ton of details and not getting a lot of content or context back from the board. Take the time to understand what are the most important measures of success in your organization and make sure you are reporting on them in a way that facilitates a conversation around the board table. Not just a check box for yes, it’s green, yes, it’s yellow, but we think it’ll be green by the next meeting.
Use your KPIs, use your measures to have success to have meaningful conversations about the few core areas that are going to drive the business. One of the things that happens in our sector all too often is organizations use the adage, “What gets measured gets done,” and turn that into something where if it can be counted, it should be measured. That’s where we see organizations counting click-through rates and reporting on the number of emails open rates at board meetings, which is fine-grained tactical often for the annual fund or marketing strategies rather than reporting on the actual revenue and the cost of acquiring a particular donor, which is much more strategic, much more relevant to conversations around the board table. Make sure that you are reporting measures that are relevant and point to the success of your organization as a whole, not those things that you are able to count.
Ensure A Clear Understanding Of Your Own Unique Value Proposition
Finally, and this is the most important resolution, one that I hope all of you hear and take to heart. Ensure that as a leader of the organization, you have a clear understanding of your own unique value proposition. What are the goals that you need to achieve as a leader independent from the overall organizational goals?
As CEO or executive director, you are of course accountable for all of the goals set out by the organization and are approved by the board. As the leader of the organization, I encourage you to develop the 1, 2, or 3 things where your activity is going to add value to amplify your organization, to help you achieve your strategic and operational plans. Have goals and measures of success for you personally that are aligned with, but distinct from the goals of your organization.
The very best leaders that I have had the opportunity to work with have a clear sense of where they add value to their organizations, how their involvement in relationship-building program development or add advocacy, or even government relations adds value to the organization, and they have specific goals for themselves around how much time they are going to spend on that. How will they know what’s working? What are the measures of success for those activities? They hold them close to their chest because this is how they are individually going to add value to the organization in addition to their role as CEO or executive director.
Leaders who have their own goals often tend to be the ones who do best in managing their energy levels. They often are able to avoid the feeling of burnout because they have a clear understanding of where they are adding value and what matters most in terms of what comes into their inbox, what goes out of their inbox, and the conversations they have on a day-to-day basis. Have your own independent goals for measuring your contribution to your organization that are aligned with, but distinct from your overall organizational goals.
Social Profit Leaders: The best leaders have a clear understanding of where they are adding value. This helps them manage their energy levels and avoid burnout.
That’s it. Seven resolutions for social profit leaders. There’s probably an infinite number that we could talk through, but I hope if you take the time to think through the questions related to being curious about your organization, take the time to call those donors. Treat the end of the fiscal year as a leverage point. Ask yourself the four questions related to board engagement. Name and slay the zombies. Review your organizational KPIs with an eye towards reducing the number that is reported to your leadership team and your board, and finally, have those independent goals that measure your contribution as a leader to the organization.
It’s a great year ahead with some exceptional work happening across our sector, and I hope these resolutions help you. If you do try one of these, please send me a note to drop me a note. Send me an email directly to [email protected]. Let me know how these resolutions are helping you in supporting you and your team to do the great work of your organization. I look forward to more episodes here in season nine. Thank you for reading the blog.
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About Douglas Nelson
Doug Nelson founded The Discovery Group with a vision to bring together a group of talented and compassionate leaders. Together they are aligned with his belief that the social profit sector represents individuals and communities coming together to change the world for the better. Collectively, they spearhead inspired strategies to help nurture that change.
Described by the media as a ‘fundraising phenom’ and a ‘true innovator,’ Doug unravels complex challenges in aligning governance and philanthropic performance. His early development work in education propelled him to become the Chief Development Officer at the University of Alberta, and responsible for the second largest fundraising campaign in Canadian history.
As President and CEO of the BC Cancer Foundation for six years, he led the organization to revenue of $300 million, including a campaign that would launch the Personalized Onco-Genomic (POG) program. His work is award-winning in the areas of governance, culture, advocacy, and innovative granting, and he has raised nearly $1 billion for organizations in Canada and the United States.
As President of the California Pacific Medical Centre Foundation, he led the development and execution of a campaign that would support the opening of two hospitals valued at $3 billion, shaping the future of care in San Francisco.
Doug is also host of the leading social profit sector podcast, The Discovery Pod. With a photographic memory for baseball statistics, Doug had a childhood dream to be the first baseman for the Toronto Blue Jays. These days, he can be found remarkably often at a Bob Dylan concert.
