Moving the Needle: What Nonprofit Leaders Across the Country Are Talking About

Everywhere I go, nonprofit leaders are asking the same questions:

• How do we rebuild donor trust?
• How do we keep our teams energized and healthy?
• And most importantly, how do we move beyond awareness into action that changes lives?

This summer I had the honor of co-hosting a community listening session in Utah with local philanthropist. She graciously opened her home, baked her famous banana bread, and gathered an inspiring group of nonprofit leaders around her dining table.

We had no agenda for the space except to have a conversation about current challenges and promoting well-being. What we got was a room full of honesty, vulnerability, and vision for the future of the nonprofit sector.

We need more spaces like this in every community right now.

So why aren’t we creating them?

That’s an excellent question. Mostly because people tend to need a “reason” to gather together. My attendance was reason enough for the group of fantastic nonprofit Salt Lake City ladies to come together. But the truth is, they needed to connect anyway.

Over and over again the women in the room said things like “I know of your work and organization but we’ve never met” or “I worked with your board member X, but we’ve never met”. My favorite were all the people who knew each other through our hostess but had not been in a conversation with each other.

My hunch is every community has some version of this- a convener or champion who seems to “know everyone” and “works with every nonprofit”. These influencers are crucial when three are big sifts in the landscape and coming together is the only way forward.

I’m super grateful to our hostess and facilitator Mary Crafts for her hospitality and years of leadership in the Salt Lake City business and nonprofit space.

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What We Heard From Utah Nonprofit Leaders

The Utah leaders echoed what I’ve been hearing in other communities across the country:

• Funding & Burnout– Donor trust has been shaken after organization closures, and leaders are stretched thin. A common funding gap is simply covering overhead ensuring sustainable organizations can continue to do good work.
• Leadership & Self-Care Nonprofit professionals are mission-driven, but without boundaries and balance, burnout creeps in. Wellness is essential for sustainable leadership. Although wellness looks different for every leader.
• Beyond Awareness Awareness campaigns are important, but they’re not enough. Leaders want to move the needle with measurable outcomes on issues like homelessness, suicide prevention, and trafficking.

These three issues are common threads that were shared across organizations from different perspectives. How are these issues coming up for nonprofit leaders in your community?

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Nonprofit Sector Innovations

Creating space for connection is a bridge to share innovations across organizations within a sector. Our conversation was a space for thought partnership and creativity through connection.

Here are a few innovations worth sharing widely;:

• Position Sponsorship as Marketing Nonprofits often frame sponsorship as a donation, but it is more advantageous for businesses to see it as a marketing investment. By shifting your language, you can explore new opportunities for business partnerships that include co-marketing.
• Collaboration & Connection When leaders share resources and strategies, best practices can take hold across organizations. Building trust and cross-sector collaboration are the keys to real momentum in the nonprofit sector. Continuing to meet in informal ways can promote deeper connections that foster future partnerships.

Think about the types of innovations might be happening in your community and how you can help share them across nonprofits.

What We Can Do Together

This session left me more convinced than ever that the future of nonprofits lies in convening, collaboration, and collective action. Here are a few steps any community can take and how Wendie Veloz Enterprises can help:

1. Quarterly Community Convenings Host recurring gatherings for nonprofit leaders. WVE can facilitate and structure these conversations to ensure they lead to action or provide you with a custom structure for your collaborative efforts.
2. Local Peer Networks Create structured opportunities for leaders to connect, share resources, and build trust. Think beyond coffee chats to conversations that build accountability systems.
3. Collective Marketing Campaigns Collaborate across organizations to restore donor trust and highlight the measurable impact nonprofits are making. WVE partners with top nonprofit marketing firms to support you where your impact, profit, and marketing missions meet.
4. Wellness as Prevention Shift from one-on-one coffee meetings to wellness-centered activities — yoga, walks, meditation — that double as networking and burnout prevention. Create a community calendar that offers a variety of experiences your network can opt into.

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