Episode Details

What happens when the big check finally arrives and your organization isn't ready to hold it?

Sharmon Lebby has seen it up close. She's the Founder and CEO of Blessed Designs Consulting, a nonprofit strategist with more than 20 years of experience, and she's currently serving as an interim executive director while running her own business. Ask her why more money doesn't automatically make an organization healthier and her answer is direct: most often, everything just sort of falls apart.

Sharmon is also a former neuroscience research associate, so she thinks a lot about how our brains work. She points to research showing that when we want to make something better, our instinct is to add. More money means more people served, more programs, more of everything. We pile it on without asking whether the foundation we built can carry the weight.

Money is a tool, and a tool only helps when you know what you're going to do with it. A hammer is great for hanging a picture. Use it for everything and you'll end up tearing down some walls.

In this episode of Nonprofit Nook, Sharmon joins Wendy to share the signs that an organization is growing faster than its infrastructure can support. Everything depends on one or two people. Nobody can take a week of vacation without things slipping. The team is already worn out. There's no reliable way to track what's coming in and going out. Larger funding also brings more compliance, and the IRS and your state will want more from you.

They also talk about what ready looks like. Your processes are written down, including how you do things and why you make the decisions you make. Your board can talk about the organization with confidence and clarity. Everybody is rowing in the same direction. And you could leave on vacation tomorrow and come back to an organization that's still going strong.

From there the conversation turns to governance. Wendy and Sharmon dig into why the strategic plan should drive the fundraising, what happens when the person or donor who brings in the money starts steering the mission, and why saying no to funding is sometimes the right call. Sharmon also has a lot of empathy for development directors, who by one estimate she heard last an average of 18 months, often because they're asked to raise money nobody has explained to them.

Beyond the checklists, this is a conversation about moving out of a scarcity mindset. It's hard to hear "money is just a tool" when you're trying to survive. Sharmon's encouragement is to build slow and build solid, and to start with whatever made you cringe a little while you were listening.

If you lead, volunteer with, support, or dream of starting a nonprofit, this conversation is a reminder that the work you put into your foundation is what lets the next dollar do its job.

In This Episode

You'll hear Wendy and Sharmon talk about:

Resources + Links

Connect with Sharmon Lebby + Blessed Designs Consulting

Websitehttps://blesseddesignsco.com

Nonprofit Launch Academyhttps://blesseddesignsco.com/nonprofitlaunchacademy

Free resources from Sharmonhttps://blesseddesignsco.com/friends

Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/blesseddesignsco/

Sharmon Lebby on LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/sharmon-lebby/

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