Claim OwnershipThe Nonprofit Show
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© 2026 American Nonprofit Academy
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The Nonprofit Show is the nation’s daily broadcast for the business side of nonprofits — bringing you practical insights, expert interviews, and real-world strategies to help your organization run smarter, lead stronger, and fund better.
Each weekday, our co-hosts and guests break down the most current topics in fundraising, board governance, leadership, staffing, technology, communications, and financial strategy — giving nonprofit professionals the tools they need to build sustainable, high-performing organizations.
With more than 1,400 episodes and growing, our on-demand library is a trusted resource for executive directors, team members, fundraisers, board members, and sector leaders who are ready to move beyond inspiration and into implementation.
🎥 Watch the daily show on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3A0Dqlw
930 Episodes
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In 2026, nonprofit finance isn’t just about reporting what happened — it’s about shaping what happens next. Ellie Hume (Regional Director, at Your Part-Time Controller) leasds a forward-facing conversation on financial leadership that starts with one powerful idea: your organization’s strongest advantage is what you choose to control. If your nonprofit is ready to “spiral up,” this episode offers a finance-and-management playbook that turns mindset into momentum—so you can stay steady, stay s...
Why don’t nonprofit boards do their work — and what can executive leaders actually do about it? In this episode we welcome back executive coach, author, and speaker Hardy Smith, creator of the Amazon bestseller Stop the Nonprofit Board Blame Game. Hardy tackles the question nonprofit leaders lose sleep over: when boards underperform, is the problem really “the board”… or the way we build the board? Hardy makes a bold case that disengagement often starts long before the first meeting — in recr...
Organizational assessments can sound intimidating—like a test, a grade, or a “gotcha.” We sit down with Joan Brown, Chief Operations Officer at Third Sector Company, to reframe assessments as one of the smartest business moves a nonprofit can make—especially during leadership transition. Joan explains that a strong organizational assessment is not about blame. It’s a systematic look at operations, performance, systems, and culture to answer one question: Are we operating in the best possible ...
2026 is already rewriting the fundraising playbook—and your nonprofit can’t afford to run last year’s plays. In this Fundraisers Friday conversation, Julia C. Patrick and Tony Beall lay out the business realities that will separate thriving organizations from the ones that stall out: AI adoption, the Great Wealth Transfer, next-gen talent shifts, and smart technology investment. First, they make it plain: AI has moved from optional to operational. As Julia says, “AI now is not a nice to have....
Nonprofit work is purpose-driven, but the business reality is relentless: tight budgets, heavy caseloads, public scrutiny, and a pace that rarely fits inside “normal hours.” In this episode we welcome Rahul K. Maharaj, known as “Mr. Trauma Talks,” for a timely conversation about stress, trauma, and what leaders must do to protect the people who power the mission. Rahul opens by reframing the myth of the “fresh start.” Many professionals don’t begin January renewed they begin January carrying ...
What if the biggest thing holding your nonprofit back isn’t budget, bandwidth, or the board… but the size of the goal itself? In this energizing conversation, Julia C. Patrick turns the spotlight inward for a rare public coaching session with Keith Ellis, “The Impossible Success Coach.” Together they tackle a leadership problem every nonprofit executive and development team knows too well: the endless list of “important” goals that leaves you busy, stressed, and still frustrated come October....
We welcome Katie Warnock, CEO and Founder of Staffing Boutique, for a “New Year Trend Forecasting” conversation—focused squarely on what nonprofit leaders must do to operate smarter, steadier, and more sustainably. Katie opens with a morale boost that’s grounded in real numbers: philanthropy is getting culturally “cool,” even as many executive directors and development leaders report that fundraising has felt exhausting and uphill. She points to GivingTuesday results and rising volunteer part...
If your nonprofit is staring at a funding gap in 2026: your money problem may actually be a structure problem. Host Julia C. Patrick welcomes Dr. Sharon Elefant of The Nonprofit Plug to talk about why grants and big gifts don’t “save” organizations when the foundation underneath is shaky—things like weak financial controls, unclear governance, founder-centric operations, burnout, and stalled growth. Dr. Elefant frames it in plain language: when infrastructure is messy, even good funding becom...
how nonprofits set goals that actually move revenue, relationships, and results. They start with the metric many teams avoid because it can be a rude awakening: donor retention. Tony walks through a simple way to calculate it, then connects the number to what leaders feel every day, time and budget pressure. His reminder lands like a CFO truth bomb: “The data doesn’t lie.” If your team assumes things are fine because a few familiar names show up at events, this episode brings you back to real...
Year-end doesn’t “arrive” in nonprofits so much as it ambushes us. And that’s exactly why this conversation with John Tiso, VP of Revenue and Service Delivery at JMT Consulting, and Buu Lình Tran, SVP of Financial Solutions at JMT Consulting, feels like a shot of espresso for your finance, accounting, and operations leadership. Host Julia C. Patrick frames the real business challenge: you’re not only closing the books you’re leading humans through a high-pressure stretch where accuracy, speed...
Starting a nonprofit is often treated like a simple administrative step: fill out a few forms, wait a bit, and you’re off to the races. But in this episode, Julia C. Patrick and cohost Ellie Hume sit down with Christian LeFer, CEO of Instant Nonprofit, to talk about what it really takes to launch—and sustain—a mission-driven organization with business discipline. Christian shares how many founders arrive at the nonprofit moment almost accidentally: the garage is full of dog crates, the commun...
Consistency is not glamorous, but it’s the engine that keeps a nonprofit’s business model running when the calendar flips and the pressure spikes. In this conversation with Matt Glazer, Founder and CEO of Blue Sky Partners (Austin-based, national reach), we talk about building consistent engagement without burning out your team or betting the whole year on a Q4 miracle. Matt brings a practical operator’s lens: simplify what repeats, template what you can, and stop trying to cram “97 thi...
Founder syndrome gets tossed around like a diagnosis, but this conversation reframes it as a leadership and governance challenge that shows up in real nonprofit operations: decision rights, communication, accountability, and the organization’s ability to scale beyond one person’s willpower. Guest Brittan Stockert (Donorbox) opens by rejecting the blame-heavy tone of the phrase and naming the real risk: “Founder syndrome is really when… you treat your nonprofit as if it’s yours personally… as ...
Fundraisers Friday is back, and Julia C. Patrick and Tony Beall (Mr. Nonprofit Consultancy) tackle a topic that quietly runs the business side of fundraising: donor tier levels. If you’ve ever stared at your donor list and wondered, “Where do we start, and how do we keep this manageable?” this episode is your playbook. They begin with the “why.” Tony frames donor tiers as a practical operating system, not a fancy fundraising accessory. Done well, tiers let you personalize messaging and protec...
Finishing the year “strong” is not just a slogan for nonprofit leaders; it’s a finance and operations project. Regional Director Ellie Hume from Your Part-Time Controller walks through five concrete steps to wrap up the year with fewer surprises and more control. She starts with yearend giving appeals. Too many organizations accidentally lock donations into narrow buckets by saying things like “your gift will buy two backpacks.” Donors then reasonably assume their dollars can only be used for...
Around the world, women and girls walk long distances every day to fetch water, losing education, income, and safety in the process. On this global episode of The Nonprofit Show, we welcome Shilpa Alva, founder and executive director of Surge for Water, beaming in late at night from Samarkand, Uzbekistan. From the first moments, Shilpa reframes water as a gendered economic issue, not just an infrastructure problem. As Shilpa puts it, “The water crisis is a woman’s crisis” — and it is also a p...
Donor retention is not just a feel good metric it is one of the most powerful levers in the business model of a nonprofit. We sit down with Kirsten Wantland, Principal Industry Strategist at Bloomerang, to explore how organizations can move beyond fear and confusion and actually use retention data to protect revenue and grow lifetime value. Kirsten begins by explaining her new role at Bloomerang, serving as a bridge between fundraisers in the field and the engineering and product teams. She b...
Labor myth buster Dana Scurlock, Director of Recruitment at Staffing Boutique, reframes temporary staffing as a sophisticated business tool for nonprofit leaders—not a last-resort move when things are on fire. Dana steps in to show how strategic temp and temp-to-perm staffing can stabilize teams, protect budgets, and protect sanity. She starts with a fundamental question: how many staffing firms does a nonprofit really need? From organizations that have never used an agency to those calling t...
In this thoughtful Fundraisers Friday conversation, cohosts Julia C. Patrick and Tony Beall take viewers inside one of the most persistent tensions in fundraising: the distinction between donor appeals and donor relationships. Using real experiences, honest stories, and decades of shared sector knowledge, they walk through why these two ideas are often treated as opposites—when in reality, they function best in tandem. Their convo opens with warmth and camaraderie, quickly shifting into a sub...
A valuable and thought-provoking conversation with Carrie Wright, consultant and coach at Wright Consulting. Joined by cohosts Julia C. Patrick and Wendy F. Adams, Carrie guides leaders toward a more thoughtful, rigorous, and human-centered approach to nonprofit organizational performance. Rather than rushing into resolutions and planning cycles, Carrie urges leaders to adopt a practice of year-end reflection—an intentional look backward before charting the year ahead. As she states, “There’s...
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