If you're looking to maximize your fundraising efforts, DonorBox's online donation platform is designed to help you reach your fundraising goals with ease. Discover the world of simplified, seamless fundraising at DonorBox.org. DonorBox, helping you help others. Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub Podcast, I'm your host Megan Steer and I'm so excited to be joined by my friend today. Craig Denison is the founder of Green Thumb Consulting, and we're so excited to have his leadership and wisdom on the podcast today to set us all up for success in the next year. So I know as you're listening to this, we're kind of in the midst of Q4, everybody is in the midst of getting ready for giving season and year-end giving and all that that entails. But there is life beyond it, Q1 of next year is coming, and so Craig, welcome to the podcast. So excited to have you here to share how we can make sure that we're starting that year on a solid footing. And thanks for having me, this is going to be so fun to talk about, yeah. I agree. It's like one of the hardest, it's like a really hard job, maybe the hardest season in a really hard job, because there's so many things that fall on top of each other, there's vision needed in addition to like it's a game time typically for donations and revenue and the teams looking to you, and there's so many components, and so it's such a high impact time. Also, I think it's like why is such an opportunity for burnout, and so really excited to dive in. And anyways, I can help today. I'm really excited to get to do that. Yeah, I think it's going to be great. To start us off though, Craig, give the audience a little bit of background about yourself, and kind of your journey in non-profit, because you more than most people have worn all the hats at this point. So you can very much relate to our audience in that regard, but give us a little bit about your background. Yeah, so my best plan for myself as being a guitar player in like a dark corner of a stage somewhere, and I was working hard on that plan, and then I was in and got signed to a contract like a Christian music producer, and we were doing the whole like that thing, and then it just wasn't fulfilled by that after a while. So I left that when back to school, and when I graduated, I picked up a bunch of like media and marketing skills in the bank, and someone had to kind of run the business of the band and realized when we started a band, we're starting a business, but that is absolutely rewarding. And so my dad had a longtime pastor of some really large churches in Texas and Atlanta, and had started a non-profit that was focused kind of around Christian content, specifically with like news and faith, and like, how do we reckon how it's happening in our world from like Christian perspective, called the "Dinnison Forum"? And so I during the week, I was like leading worship on the weekend with my wife Rachel, and then during the week was helping my dad that had started this venture with like media marketing stuff, and so started off just serving him and that resources, it was growing, primarily email-based, and then kind of building an economic engine there, and then I started a resource inside that organization that's a daily devotional called First of Teen. It's being time with God was really transformative for me personally, and just felt like that was something that was an opportunity for us to do. So started that, kind of became like a product creator or content creator in that space, and then the way to grow it was marketing, and then was strategy, and then was leadership in building an economic engine, and ended up in the CEO's seat for at that point the organization was kind of like a bigger Christian media organization with a lot of different brands underneath it. And then I was a CEO for a few years, and we did a big growth wave, and like revenue, and donors, and team, and audience, and it's a really fun like three-year spread. I worked myself out of my job, and I was trying to be the best CEO for that organization that it could be, and all I wanted to do was break it apart and put it back together again, and that was the wrong thing to do. And so I was healing board when I should have felt satisfied and peaceful, and so I finally realized like I think I can do everything I'm doing right now without taking a paycheck here, so I just kind of raised my hand towards the end of that year and said I think I don't need to be CEOing, I think the executive team can run this thing, I think I can still do fundraising and content and whatever without taking a paycheck, I had started doing pro bonus consulting at that point in time just because I loved helping other organizations figure out their growth model. And yeah, so left that kind of transitioned out across a year, picked up some clients from like Patlyn June and the table group helping them with some marketing and strategy staff to some nonprofits, to like a cold plunge client or an event production client, helping people across like for profit and nonprofit from like a team standpoint and strategy standpoint and a marketing standpoint kind of get a scalable growth engine to whether you're doing to hit their unique potential, whatever that is. So we're doing that last couple of years through green thump consulting, some other things and like loved not going to be a resource to owner operators, whether they're nonprofit or proper or profit, helping them like they all have this amazing visions. How do you get them to fulfill what that vision is? That's great. I yeah, I have watched a lot of that journey, so I'm excited to see that flourishing for you outside of the nonprofit itself, but just in general, so excited to share that wisdom. As we sit here today, we're recording obviously a couple of weeks in advance, but it is October 1st. It is officially the beginning of Q4. It is the beginning of nonprofit Super Bowl season, if you will, right? Because we all know that year end giving push, we've got giving Tuesday, we've got year end, we've got all of all of the things I know I have talked to organizations who literally make 75% of their annual revenue this quarter, right? Those are big game changing kind of things and big goals. And sometimes it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that Q1 is eventually showing up. But so I want to dig in today to talk about avoiding burnout in Q4 and about how, especially as leaders, what we can do to set up our teams for success here so that we're still accomplishing the goal and we're still making it happen. But at the same time, we're playing in the long game, if you will. So if you are talking to an executive director of XYZ nonprofit who's sitting here today as we gear up for Q4, by the time this airs, we'll still have two months of it left. What is your number one piece of advice for them to consider as they get ready to lead their team well through this season? Yeah, I think the number one piece of advice is you have to pick what matters most because all the things matter. If we're not careful and we'll end up doing the thing that is loudest or it feels like matters most to other people. The main thing for us as leaders is to figure out what can we uniquely do in this season and for the organization and then how can we pull down on providing that unique value to the organization and something I think a lot of leaders lose sight of vision and leadership in the midst of all of it because they know that there's some levers they can pull to bring in revenue and often that levers that feel like only they can pull them and they know how much it matters and they're staring that big goal in the face. How much revenue has to come in across the next couple months and what this thing even exists if it doesn't. The mis-small that I think the main tip I would have is honestly to compartmentalize. I literally would walk in and out of meetings and I would pretend I was putting on different hats but to not lose and forget the hat of crafting and creating vision for the organization that you're leading and specifically having a really clear picture of that vision because January 1st rolls around and by the nature of that whether we like it or not, that's when donors, partners, teams start looking to say like what are we doing next and what's really hard about that is we just often wrap up the busiest season and it's like I'm just trying not to pass out from running so hard. What do you mean what's next? I don't know. I'm glad we made it and so something I used to try to do in that season when the team was looking to be for vision and direction, I always felt like it had to be two or three weeks ahead of that question getting asked. If they're going to start asking in January 1st, how do I have an answer to that question starting December 10th or December 15th and so to compartmentalize, I would across the next few months look for half days or full days that you can calendar out and try to batch as much of your work as possible to not lose sight of crafting vision, taking time to think and plan. Imagine assume things go well, believe they're going to and then like what would be your answer to those questions and you have a really clear answer to that before Christmas rolls around so you can kind of just let it marinate and then January 1st hits and you're able to drive this thing forward across those layers of your audiences whether it's the team primarily or it's partners or donors or whatever it may be. So I think that's my number one tip, figure out what uniquely you provide the organization try to double down on that because I think leaders need to provide vision. Don't lose sight of like really calendar out time to develop that. I love that because I think it's the tier new that urgent, right? Nope. Okay. Yes. Focus on the thing that's on fire. Once that's not on fire, then we'll see what's left. But making time for it intentionally I think is a really strong start. When it comes to the folks who report to us as leaders, right, because it's one thing for us because that vision is going to come from the leader itself. That's got to be driven only by you, but you have at least a couple of people, maybe one or two, sometimes a whole team of people or a whole organization. If you're the CEO underneath you, how do we make sure that the folks underneath us aren't burning out in this season also? Oh, man. A hundred percent. Yeah. A I think having trickled on meetings is really important. So the ability to have like, I wouldn't craft the vision just yourself. If you have the ability to have semi-incative team around you, I do it offsite like early December before it's like truly, truly game time and holiday sit and all that stuff come ready to craft that vision with them and a plan on how to communicate that. So that's like fairly set prior to and then in order to make sure other people aren't burning out around you in the midst of all of that, but like you're really doing this out of the team, I think it's really key to find time to celebrate things through the process as opposed to like just get stuff done, like find times to have wins. I actually think like how we show up as leaders into the organization and like how frantic we are, but has a lot to do with the tone we set for other people and how frantic they are. And as leaders, I think sometimes we feel that we can take on being frantic or having more responsibility ourselves to save the team around us from being frantic. I found that it's like to be the exact opposite. The team needs based on your actions, not just your words, actually primarily your actions, like the freedom and an invitation to say like, we don't have to rush around. Everything doesn't have to get responded to every second. We can like have rhythms and compartmentalize some of this work and go at it in waves. And like really not go at this with the feeling of everything being on fire and urgent. And if we can show up to even this busy season as leaders modeling that and even saying like, hey, I think we got stuff done, let's unplug an hour early or hey, I think we can cancel this meeting today because I know everyone's got a ton of stuff running and I'd appreciate the hour to get this thing done. And so let's take the next hour and just knock out two things on your plate. Like if you can model awareness for the season that you're in, but that you're not frantic, you're actually taking time off around holidays, like you're not losing sight of like family and friendships in yourself, especially if you can have some vision days. And I'm going to think through what next year looks like that itself is a good communication to the team because it tells them, hey, we're not just living and dying by the next two months, we're already looking forward and planning on like, what are we going to be doing next year? And that itself can give some higher elevation context and a bit of peace to the people that you work with. Don't fall into the trap of being too frantic. Even if you feel frantic, like on the inside, like how can you show up with a posture of like everything's going to be okay, we don't have to respond to everything as originally as it feels. Yeah. I was part of a LinkedIn conversation thread just today, actually, that was talking about one of the biggest mistakes that they see in Q1 that leaders make is that they forgot all about their messaging from Q4, right? So even if you want to buy yourself a little more time, it's easy to say, these are the things that we focused on in terms of our asks for Q4. Here's our year end message. Let's spend the first two or three weeks of the year telling people about the impact of those things, right? You don't even, if maybe if you're in a position where, as Craig said, segmenting out some of that time or maybe that's just not an option with your team, however it is, there is a little bit of a window that you can buy ourselves if we remember that the messaging matters in Q1 that you gave in Q4. So I'm curious to see what your take would be on that if you would agree with this conversation that was hanging out in the LinkedIn comment threads or if maybe that's not as high of a priority? What do you think? I think one of the main ways I coach, for profit or non-profit, like coach leaders, especially as we dip more into like the marketing side, is really like you should say a third of the amount of things that you're saying, say them like seven times more often and you should give yourself like three times the amount of time to say them before people start really like understanding. One of the big temptations, I think, because we live and breed this stuff every day, is that January 1st hits and it's like, I got to have something brand new and this thing's got to be like next level and bright and shiny and the donors, that can be really a turn off for team and donors who are like, we just invested a lot of time or money or both or whatever in this communication that was like why the organization matters and willing to you to accomplish. And I honestly think like the best thing that team and donors can hear in January is really closely related to what they heard in December and is less, hey, make this thing happen and it's really just, hey, the same thing is going to happen that I said I wanted to happen in December. Now we just because of your generosity over your time or talent or treasure are in this space tool, we can actually do it. So thank you for making that possible. They hear the same things that you're going to do again. It's not new things and that actually provides some sense of connection between those communications and that one thing by itself, if you can create a narrative, especially for donors, especially major donors where it's not a new shiny thing all the time, but like what you gave towards is what we're devoting our time and energy towards now. That is such a breath of fresh air for them and that flow, especially get year after year of that where they get used to that, the trust that builds in the last time you had the spin with those people, the more they'll invest in the organization. After a third year, we had some donors just sending us checks that we didn't ask for. We had already given a big investment that year and they just a year in, roll around, they had a good year. They're like, we're trying to find somewhere good to give. It's like, well, we know this organization is accomplishing. We know what they're doing. We know they're going to keep doing it. So why is we're going to another check because we know what the checks go towards and they're not worried that that's going to get lost in the shuffle. I think a huge hack is like you can save a lot of time and energy and actually get a lot more alignment and a lot more results by trying to do less. It's new and communicating the same thing multiple times, not expecting people to get it the first time and in January, like it not being the new shiny thing, but it really is. Thank you. And we're going to do what we said we were going to do. Yeah. I think that's so important because the vision is the vision, right? We don't have to reinvent the wheel every year, but we, and I don't know why we all put that on ourselves, especially in that CEO executive director kind of seat. It's like the new year's coming, I have to come in with this woohoo. And that's just one pressure that we can take off. Well, I don't know why we do that to ourselves. A hundred percent. I think we assume sometimes like as leaders of something that the unique thing that we provide is inventing the new thing to do. And actually, I think the thing that people need for us the most is just clarity of what is happening that matters most, even if it's the same thing that heard before. And there's a sense of like peace, oh man, that if the team will look at you so grateful that you work with donors will look at you so grateful and January rolls around and you say like, hey, there's actually not a lot new happening. This is what we're about. This is what we're doing. Here's how we're going to implement that this year, like that'll be a deep breath or fresh air that all of those people breathe. What you're doing is providing clarity around what matters as opposed to inventing something new for the sake of doing it. Elevate your fundraising strategy effortlessly with DonorBox, the online fundraising platform that streamlines your operations, amplifies donations, and delivers a user-friendly experience for your supporters. Design captivating donation forms, accept digital wallet payments, seamlessly monitor donations, and automate receipt generation. Joining is a breeze with no setup or monthly fees. From customizable donation forms and four times faster, ultra-swift checkout to seamless in-person giving with DonorBox Live kiosk, DonorBox makes giving simple and fast for your donors. Visit donorbox.org and unlock your full fundraising potential today. Let's take a moment and speak directly to the person who's listening, for whom at this point, you know, you're a month in, maybe five weeks in to Q4, and things are not on track. But either the goal is not on track of where we'd like to be by this point in the year, or, you know, all of a sudden you realize the giving Tuesday is just a couple of weeks away and your direct mail is not going to be done in time, or whatever the case may be. The person who is feeling the pressure, because they are not on track for where they want to be in giving season at this particular juncture, let's talk to them directly about maybe some ways to help manage expectations, especially around your team, or how to lead well when the goal is looking like it's not going to be met. Man, 100%. I mean, I think a really valuable way to do that is, like, organizations, when I was leading and then organizations I consult with now, like, we really encourage them to have a weekly tactical, the weekly tactical rhythm is like a scoreboard for like the major components of the projects that matter right now, and not just being you that says, are they on track or not, but like, have the core people around you and take time every I love doing this on Mondays, like, score, where are they at, and then take the bulk of the agenda to see, like, based on whatever on track or not, like, what are we going to do about that this week? And the more that that's a weekly conversation that you can keep on track with, the more that you can make little pivots as things have been flocked as you have to, like, that's a part of any rollout, like, nothing goes according to plan, and you can pivot and still generate some really great results, even if there's major components that are missing, or that major donor that you thought was going to give ends up not, I like to have the core brain trust that's really making your end happen in the same room, virtually, you're in person once a week, all scoring are, like, together, where are we at with these projects, taking the next hour to say, like, what do we do in light of that? And the goal being, like, debate and decisions, not, like, nebulous conversation, because oftentimes to get those results, like, the thing you need the most is just a clear decision of, like, things aren't going according to plans. So this is what we're going to do. And then the faster you make the decision, the more people can at least respond and have the chance of getting results because they can actually implement it. So yeah, so that's one thing I would say. And then in this season, too, it's like, I mean, there's a lot of ways to be able to hit year end goals. There's a lot of opportunities. I think something you can really think through, depending on, like, how the major donor stuff is working, is the more honest you can be with them, the better. If you're really not hitting goals, that's something you should tell your core, your main donors, like, they really can communicate that to them, like, hey, we're struggling. Things are off here. If this doesn't come in, here's what's going to happen. That's a lever you should only pull when it's true and honest. Yeah, feels so scary, even just listening to you. So scary. It's like, oh, gosh, oh, I hated we had one year. I was like, I don't think we're going to be the first year. I was CEO. I was like, I think this can be the first year that we're in the red. This is in like the 12 year history of this organization. I'm 31 as like a new CEO, and I'm going to have to like, and I remember making a few of those calls. And that was such a trust building moment for me and those donors. There was three calls I made. One of them was a board member. There had been some issues inside of like the reporting across like the late half the summer getting into the fall. So we thought that revenue was a different spot than it was. There was some revenue getting double counted. We realized that mid-November was like, oh, we are not on track. Our goal needs to be bigger than we thought it was. And making some of those phone calls, like I just said, there's no expectation we're right now course-correcting. Like, if this doesn't come through, here's what we're going to do to do different. But if you want to step up and help the organization in this moment, like you're in a place to be able to do that, we need help. And making those three phone calls was hundreds of thousands of dollars to the organization. And actually, those became some of my like closest donors that would check in and be like, how's it going? They were so grateful. I was honest with them. They felt like they really, the whole next year, they had a sense of like ownership of this organization that was different than just getting a year in the mailer. Or we always set the goals and they're contributing what they usually do. It's not a bad thing to open up the table of responsibility to people that believe in what you do and say, hey, as people that have said, we care about this, this is what needs to happen for this to move forward. It's not you asking for money for you. It's you stewarding this organization as the one that's aware of what it needs and bringing people around the table to make it happen. That's so good. I think the important thread that I'm seeing through all of this, right? Whether it's pulling that lever if you have to, but being honest with your team in these conversations and being honest with them about where we are. But also, if you're succeeding and doing well, being honest enough to set the tone and be there, the theme that keeps coming back then is that transparency as a leader, right? Which is so hard. It's so easy to sit here and say like, yes, just got to be honest, you got to be transparent. But as a leader, it is so hard to do. That's a hard call out. 100%. It is, I think, the thing that people need from leaders the most, like people don't need leaders to be the smartest person in the room. They don't need you to be the one that always has the best ideas. They don't need you to be the most gifted communicator or charismatic individual. All these things, I had so many archetypes in my head of what I thought. Of what a leader is supposed to be, yes. And I was trying to live up to those, and then it took too long to realize. And now, through consulting, this is a lot of what we do with companies and organizations is like, help leaders realize what the team actually needs from you is just for you to be a vulnerable human and not let go of the responsibilities that you have, but have a lot of billions to that and then make clear decisions and say like, and be vulnerable about those decisions. The decisions that leaders make are hard, otherwise, you wouldn't be making them. So when else would? And so they're multi-faceted, there's likely a big set of pros and cons, risks and rewards, and no one can predict the future. And you can say that to the people that are on you, hey, I don't know if this decision is going 100% be the right thing. With this as the pros and cons list, I think let's choose this set and move forward and make the best of it. I started making a rule for myself as a leader. I had to use this as a consultant a lot. There's a real temptation for consultants to be the smartest person in the room, and the reason they hire you is because you have all the answers, and I don't, and no consultant does. And often we don't know your organization the way that you do, and you have history and context that we don't. And so we have to really lean in through vulnerability a lot. And in doing that, I made a rule for myself when I show up to my field at Temptation to have the hard shell. If I lose a client, if I lose a team member, if I lose a donor, if I lose anyone because I was vulnerable, then I will always take them as opposed to the negative results that come from being non-vulnerable. And so you have to choose what future you're going to live with. And so I just made a rule for myself to live based on that set of pros and cons and whatever comes from that. And honestly, it's amazing how well that serves. It's hurtful at times, and especially to like when you get hurt to choose to be vulnerable again, when people don't respond well to that. But it absolutely, I think, is a massive ingredient for success. One of the main reasons I think that leaders burn out is because they don't feel the freedom to do that. And it's triple hard when you feel like you have to portray something that you're not at this outer shell. You can't ask for help. You can't be honest with where you are. You have to prepare so that you can save face and meeting. You have to prepare staff. And if you get rid of the faces and you can just be who you are working and moving through these different responsibilities every day, like you'll find that even in the busiest seasons, like you're less prone to burn out. I mean, I love that. Outside of the prepping for Q1, man, if the thing that you do in Q4 is just prepare yourself to be more vulnerable and more transparent and more honest with your team in Q1 and make that the new goal, oof, that would be a fantastic start to a new year. And Heidi can call out a company that was having a lego. They kind of swung for the fences and they were going to have to like six, seven people. And I was walking through the leadership team like how to do that. And honestly, the way we ended up going about that in a way that was honestly so understandable for the people, those are like my least favorite conversations I've ever had to have was just like, let's go. There's a financial thing or a whatever. And going through that process, while we ended up crafting, it's like, hey, we hate this. This sucks. I wish this wasn't the case. We swaying for the fences ended up not panning out. If we couldn't go back, obviously knowing what we know now, we do it different, but we didn't know. And so we made the best shot we could think we thought build the best company that we can that didn't pan out. And now we just have to be able to reorganize the company. And this is the decision of how we had to go forward. When you can do that vulnerably, like so many CEOs don't have that conversation that we see all those recordings of those conversations. And instead they try to leverage those to rally people to like, we still have a bright future and all these great things. It's like, just be vulnerable. Like this sucks. We don't want to do this. Right. It's terrible. Nobody wants to be in that position. I know that ultimately I'm responsible. I own that. And so even the hardest conversations, if you have more vulnerably, it's amazing how that brings people in. They actually align more with you. And there's a chance for even in the hardest times, actually, people, your condition is a better shot of making it through. I love that so much transparency and honesty. It's the word for 2025. She's creeping up faster than I ever would have anticipated it. What are you getting? Oh, man, I'm booking like off sites to help people think through like next year right now. That's wild to me. How fast things move. Oh, my gosh. That's my kids are in school now and how all those things have been flew together and all those responsibilities together. And like, it is the fall is so fun because like it picks up pace and all that. But it is like every day right now is me in my journal, where I like bring down gears, what matters today and try to prioritize the list of things I have to cut that I'm like, this matters. And I'm not doing that today. I can handle it. Yeah. Bigger and bigger all the time as we speed towards year end. And that's a hard reality for sure. Yeah. Well, take some of your own advice to not get caught in the frenzy in the chaos of it all that some good wisdom. As we wrap up, Krueger, there are any final thoughts that you have for these nonprofit leaders as we come into queue for as we gear up for especially for those giving Tuesday year end pushes. Any final thoughts for leaders as they finish strong for 2024? Yeah. And great question. I think final thoughts would be like we're finding for organizations that we consult with the more personal you can be with people that have a file of donors that are yours, you know, more touch points that are more personal. I can't tell you like the amount of gifts that came in because I ran into someone before going to a movie or someone was talking about this over here. Like it's not just vision and goals that bring in dollars. It's also a relationship. I had a mentor of mine tell me that people give on par with how much time they spent with you. Like at the end of the day, I think text messages matter, pictures of kids matter, like be a real equal person to these donors matters. And so that's one thing you can do is like sometimes just the text message in the morning and I think you thinking about you and it has nothing to do with this season you're in and just increasing touch points can really make a difference. So that'd be like one thing I would say. And then it's really hard to do this when you get busy. Like in the busy season, it's even more important to like take time before you plug into the day to get clear yourself on what matters and compartmental is like day to day. Like you don't let's this is a huge thing. You have to take it one day at a time to go to accomplish. And you'll I think you'll find that if you get clear on what really needs to happen today, you'll find that it's doable and achievable. And if you just stack those good days on top of each other, as opposed to trying to sprint through that a good two months, if you can focus instead on sprinting every day to a really good day, those good days stacking on top of each other will get you where you're trying to go and we'll get the organization where it's trying to go. I love it. Craig, thank you again. My guest today has been Craig Dennisin, who's the founder of Green Thumb Consulting. Craig, if somebody wanted to find out more about you or connect with Green Thumb, how do they go about finding you? You could just probably follow me on LinkedIn. I'm not active like on any other socials. You can just look up Craig Dennis and on LinkedIn and follow me and that's and feel free to reach out to me, message me. If I can help in any way, I'm happy to like jump on out, hang out or something and give advice if I can or whatever. So yeah, if you're listening to this and think I could be helpful in some way, don't hesitate to connect with me and reach out. Awesome. I love that. Thank you so much for that willingness to connect, but also for all of your wisdom today. I think it's going to be a great message for all of our nonprofit leaders. Thank you, Craig, for joining us today. Thanks for having me again. This is fun. My pleasure. This has been another episode of the Nonprofit Hub Podcast. I'm your host Megan Speer and we'll see you next time. [Music]
Send us a text Craig Dennison, founder of Green Thumb Consulting, joins Meghan Speer to share his unique journey from musician to nonprofit leader, offering insights that resonate with anyone looking to balance passion and responsibility. Discover how Craig manages multiple roles within an organization without succumbing to burnout, especially during the demanding Q4 season. We explore the art of staying energized and focused, ensuring your nonprofit not only survives but thrives as we approa...
