"The advice I stopped giving after I became the executive director...”

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Hey everybody, welcome to the Nonprofit Diaries. Here we tell the stories that don't make the newsletter. I'm your host, Kimberly Bottom, and on this episode, we're exploring how advice can sound pretty clear from outside a liter leadership role, but it feels really different when you're in that seat doing the work. So our guest, JB Favor, is an international nonprofit consultant, fundraising strategist, and former executive director of Pass USA, where she led scholarship and support programs for South Sudanese youth and refugees. Now, when I first connected with JB, our prep conversation quickly turned to the gap between giving advice and actually living it. So her story really explores what happens when board members crossed some governance boundaries and the consultant became the leader who had to respond. JB, welcome to the Nonprofit Diaries.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Thank you. That was a really kind intro, Kim. Happy to be on the board.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Yes, it's all true. You've lived it all. And I'm so glad you're here to share some of those lessons and learnings with us because I feel like there are, you know, some people that have done the lead job at an exec or at a nonprofit and then been a consultant, but not many. So you might have a unique perspective to share with the folks today. So first and foremost, tell us about that journey from consultant to becoming uh an executive director.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

I have been a consultant, you know, typical consultant for nonprofits. And part of my work was mostly focused on the grants and fundraising strategy area. And my transition into becoming an executive director stemmed from a relationship with one of the orgs that I was first a consultant for. And I'm pretty sure most consultants have that experience or have that, you know, feeling of sometimes feeling like they needed to step in to do more because sometimes it goes beyond just handing off a great written grant or giving an awesome fundraising strategy. Sometimes you feel like the people you're handing it over to could use some more support. And sometimes there's that itch that is always there sometimes that makes you feel like I could do this. I want to step in and really help them. Because like this is me giving them the blueprint. And as the creator of that blueprint, I feel like I could do a better job. So it was that sort of feeling, that itch that I had to continuously want to support the organizations that I consulted for that led me to accepting the role as ED for one of those organizations.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

I love that. Well, I think we're all passionate people in mission-driven work, right? So I feel like probably a lot of people have had that itch before. But before you became an executive director, you were telling me that you would give your nonprofits, your leaders, this advice about how to get their boards fundraising. And it seemed like an airtight strategy, right? What did you kind of tell them they needed to do?

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Well, I'm pretty sure that some nonprofit leaders have seen this advice where we tell them, it's it's quite popular, we say you need to get your board to fundraise. And sometimes it's not just about telling them that they needed to fundraise, it's about showing them how to do it. And we keep saying you need to show your boards how to fundraise, you need to provide them with support on how to fundraise. But I think I learned a practical lesson that sometimes it goes beyond those types of advice when you actually have to wear those shoes. It's completely yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

So you got into the executive director role and you're like, all right, I'm gonna take my own advice, I'm gonna get my board fundraising. What happened?

SPEAKER_00 3:32

So, you know, the feeling about the, you know, you never know where the shoes caught until you wear it. I used to be quite, you know, loud-mouthed about it, and you need to do this, you need to do that, you need to do that until I actually became an ED, and then I figured, well, this is why they couldn't do it. So I did learn in real time that a lot can happen between telling your boards how to fundraise, showing them how to fundraise, and them actually fundraising. And I saw in real time that it's possible for an ED to do everything right in getting their board to fundraise, but still not have them fundraise. And when I needed advice about what to do, if that happened, I could not find any advice because all the advice was just about you need to show them, you need to tell them what to do. But no one was really asking what happens if you did every single thing, every textbook manual, you followed it to the T, you taught them, you showed them, you provided templates and guides, but they still just didn't do it. What you gonna do then? And there was no advice about that.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

No, right? Well, so when you stepped into that role and you realized, okay, I'm still it's still dealing with people who no matter how much you equip them, they can just choose not to do the work. Did you learn anything from the inside then in terms of you know the excuses that they gave or or anything that would help you understand, like, hey, maybe this advice needs to be altered?

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Yeah, I think one lesson that I did learn, the first that I learned was empathy, so more empathy towards executive directors, because it's so easy to tell them what to do when you're not the one doing it. You you get me? And then the second one of it is that rather than direct all of those resources at telling the ED this is what you do, this is what you need to do, because I believe that it sort of fosters a babysitting culture where the ED is supposed to babysit. Everyone in the organization is supposed to be responsible for everything and play superhero. And I don't think that it's the ED's job to really get the board to fundraise. No, no, I feel like that the board really needs to understand that being on a board is going to involve fundraising. It's not the ED's job to play teacher or babysitter, that's just another endless list of responsibilities. Two, an already exhausted ED. It doesn't really work out well. And three, it is more support or advice in terms of what to do if you're doing everything right, but it still doesn't get the board to cooperate with you. Because I felt that at some point in my career I turned towards wherever to find advice on what to do in the situation that all that I was doing was not working, but I didn't find any. Because I think maybe no one thought it was possible for the board to not want a fundraiser to not really be interested in responding or reciprocating for whatever reasons that they may have. And I feel like we should have more advice in terms of this is how you could focus on succeeding even with an uncorporated board. That's that's more practical advice because that's that's what's actually happening in real time.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Yeah. So when you were in that executive director seat and you were recruiting the board to fundraise, and they just were not doing it, what are the what what were the conversations being had? Like when you met with your board, what were you hearing in terms of why this wasn't working?

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Um, so I I don't think I really did have the opportunity to have these conversations as much as I would have liked to have, just because there were times where um I worked with the development leaders at the time to sort of create like templates to guide the the board, tell them this is what to do. Because I have the experience. I wasn't just the typical executive director. I came from a fundraising experience. I was a consultant, I've been paid to teach boards to fundraise, so I knew what to do. I just simply did it, you know. But it wasn't that there wasn't a situation that allowed us to have conversations where they would say, This is where I need help. Like they just were not responding for no reason.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Interesting. So maybe that's the gap then. Maybe it is the communication. Do you feel like there would be a way to fix that?

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Um, I think the question is what to do in the situation where you are doing all you can to communicate, but it's just not you're not getting the response that you would have hoped to get. Because there will always be. I mean, everyone's really busy. So I try to understand that. And I think some people join boards without truly understanding that a board sit is not just uh a dormant position. It's not just something you just join for the sake of it. It's something that requires active participation. And I feel like there should be more education uh and much more stricter criteria for people who join boards. Because not too many people know that they should be active. So I think that sort of created a lackadaisical attitude. Uh this I'm not gonna say non-challenge, but more or less uh this is not really important. Or I'm gonna attend to it later and then it just spirals over to months and months, and you never hear from a board member. So I think more education on what it means to be in a board and more stricter requirements on joining boards that would really help smoothen these stuff.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

That's kind of so it's something that we kind of have to take from the beginning and lay a foundation that makes sense for getting people to participate. Okay. So obviously that's the dream scenario, right? If we if we could start fresh and tell our board, you know, coming in this is what we expect them to do. But I know there's a lot of executive directors out there sitting right now with a board that they're like, well, for better or for worse, I'm working with these guys, right? So, how has the experience that you've had now changed the way that you would advise those executive directors?

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Um, first of all, one of the things that I did when leaving office was do a complete revamp with my consultant Alpha. Because like I've I gained a complete whole realignment. Uh, like I mentioned earlier, I learned more empathy. So the way that I I advise nonprofit organizations and charities now is not from a place of I know better or this is what you gotta do. It's more of trying to understand honestly and empathetically where they currently are and to understand that sometimes a typically great industry advice may not apply depending on the nonprofit, because context matters, you know. So I've learned to not rather say, well, you need to fix your donation pages, even though that's like something that they needed to do, is to understand why they haven't done that. Perhaps perhaps they don't have enough staff. Perhaps it's the ED playing several roles, perhaps they don't have the budget to change the CRM or the software. It's trying to understand what's causing the gap and fixing that rather than just attacking the problem head on. So that's that's an approach that experience has taught me because being an ED has has filled me with so much more. I'm not gonna say wisdom, but like understanding of what it means to be an executive director. So now when I advise other nonprofits, it's coming from a place of I've been there, I've done that, and I know it's hard, but here's what you can do, and this is how you can fix this together. And small, it's I the clients I've been taking on, they the the feedback they give me is so much better because they they're saying things that I haven't heard before, and I know for sure that you know this this this improvement, this change, and it's forgotten.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Of course. Yeah, exactly. No, I I I appreciate that, you know, when someone is hiring a consultant, they want them to come in and they want them to help, you know, fix the problems if that's what they're they're looking for. But to your point, if you just kind of run in there and say, here's everything that right that's wrong, you know, that overworked executive director is probably gonna feel pretty bad about themselves, right? So leading with that empathy and that understanding and that patience, right, um, is something that probably everybody just needs to be able to have the will to want to move forward and fix the problem. So really valuable lesson there learned. And I'm I'm so glad that you shared it with us today. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Thank you. Pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

It's been so great having you on, JB. And for anybody out there that's listening, that is either an executive director or maybe you're just the one trying to work with the board right now, leading with empathy, right? Asking lots of questions. These are all things that maybe you could try to do that will help uh alleviate whatever situation you're going through. And I hope listening to this story and relating to JB's uh life experiences will help move you through that. So thank you everybody for listening this week. This is your weekly reminder to hydrate and practice self care because what you do is important and we care about you. So have a great rest of the week, and we will see you on the next episode.

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