Scaling up your nonprofit’s impact requires a focus on skills, not hires

Last month, I was delighted to be a guest on the Scaling Impact podcast hosted by Sean Boyce. As the name implies, Sean focuses his podcast on tools that can support nonprofits in growing their programs. We chatted about how fractional staffing can help nonprofits access the right skills at the right time to support their evolution. 

This transcript excerpt has been edited for flow and clarity. You can listen to our entire 30-minute conversation here.


Sean: I'd like to welcome my guest to the show today, Vicki Burkhart, who is the CEO of The More Than Giving Company as well as the Executive Director of Kids’ Chance of America. Hello Vicki, how are you?

Vicki: I’m doing really well, Sean, thanks for having me!


Sean: There's a lot of talk about some of the frustrating challenges nonprofits have hiring and building their teams. Can you share what some of those are?

Vicki: I believe a significant factor is sticking to a traditional model of filling full-time positions that may not be the perfect fit for the organization versus bringing in expertise where it’s needed. 

For instance, we're currently helping a number of clients expand or build their fundraising programs. In many cases, they come to us looking for a position: somebody who can handle all their gift acknowledgments, run their CRM, make sure they have individual major gifts and some corporate sponsorships. Well, all four of those things require different expertise, different skills and different experience. Frequently, my answer is that I would recommend putting a fractional team together. This team will include the corporate relations experience that you need to develop a successful corporate sponsorship program. It will include an individual giving specialist to put together a major gifts program. It will include a project manager and somebody with data experience to really pull together that back end so you have that humming. As you're making more donor relationships, there is a system behind the scenes that is capturing all that information and making sure that relationship is not only confirmed and supported but also cultivated and stewarded.


Sean:  Particularly attractive, I feel, are personnel you might add into the mix who have not only project management expertise but also some technical expertise as well. Some technical project managers, maybe even product managers. This is not something that's commonly talked about in nonprofit circles, yet I've seen many nonprofits, including the ones that I've worked with, get a lot of impact from folks who have that skillset. There are a bunch of areas where nonprofits can apply somebody with that expertise, but they haven't had access to it before. I want to use that to lead into how nonprofits may be able to think differently in terms of bringing folks into their organizations.

Vicki: I think a good place to start is to look at the expertise that you need to bring into your nonprofit to make it successful, to help it reach its goals, versus a headcount of individuals that you need to have on board. And it's certainly a mind shift for the nonprofit organizations. I believe for-profit businesses are further down this road and have recognized that teams can be built in a multitude of ways. Teams can be built with volunteers, and I think we must acknowledge that there are nonprofits that are still primarily volunteer-driven, and volunteer supported. More than likely though, they will benefit from adding professional expertise to those volunteer teams. It can come from full-time employees, but it can also come from fractional staff who are bringing a piece of expertise to the table. 

I think we get very caught up in full-time and part-time and I prefer to look at it as a monthly commitment of expertise. Getting back to my example about fundraising, we may have a program developer who is working 40 hours a month; we may have a fundraiser in individual gifts who's working 15 hours a month. We build our team based around the expertise that's needed, how that expertise really impacts the goals of the organization, and how we can measure those deliverables. I think measurement is a really big factor especially when you're trying to sell additional resources to your finance committee when you're laying out a budget. 

I have worked 12 years now with Kids’ Chance of America and I think they have gotten very comfortable that we've got a bench of people we can bring in and out of the organization depending upon what the needs are. If we are looking at a major program emphasis, there are people with program skills that we can bring into that scope of services to address that goal. If it is a fundraising issue, it's their 10th anniversary, we can bring in the fundraising expertise that we need. We can be flexible with that bench within the scope of services. When you hire a team or you're giving out annual contracts, you're limited to those people. When you hire a fractional team, as our model dictates, you can bring in and out the people you need to accomplish different goals. I think Kids’ Chance often sits back and is surprised by how much we can accomplish with the team approach versus what it would look like if we had to hire people to fit each of those spots. 

So, to summarize, fractional staffing offers flexibility, an expandable bench, the opportunity to secure the expertise that you need when you need it, and it doesn’t rely on one person being a superhero jack-of-all-trades.  

If you want to talk about budget, I often say you can hire one position for $80,000/year plus benefits or you can take $80,000 and build teams. You may have four or five or six people who are coming in with different skillsets and still be under what you might spend for a single individual who you're hoping is going to do everything. 

It's not a model for everyone, but I think it's worth thinking about when you look at your strategic plan, the direction that the organization wants to go and the expertise it needs.

Sean:  I love thinking of this differently, not just “this has to be a full-time person.” I see a lot of organizations that make a full-time hire and then that individual winds up being severely underutilized. That's what excites me the most about the agility and the flexibility of this as a strategy. Figuring out and focusing on your need as opposed to a seat, so to speak, because that might not give you the best bang for the buck when it comes to impact. 

I also love how you’re thinking about budget more creatively. Maybe you want someone with more expertise, but you need less of their time. You can get more creative with how to leverage that budget and pull someone in. For Executive Directors out there who are less familiar with this concept or haven't really leveraged it much yet, what's your best advice for them in terms of how to get started?

Vicki: When I put together teams for clients, I start with “What are your pain points?” I usually start with the Executive Director and say, “What don't you do want to do anymore? What don't you do well that someone else can do? What do you hate to do and so you just don't look at it? Where do you feel like your time will best benefit the organization?” Once we get number four pinned down, then we work on how one, two and three can be assumed by other team members with different expertise. Often, before I meet with an Executive Director, I will ask them to make those lists. Then, when we get together, I have a good feel for where the majority of their time is going now and where it really needs to be. It also equips us to make the case to the finance folks that the Executive Director was hired to do this, this and this, but in reality, they are spending a lot of time doing these other types of work because the right team members or resources aren’t in place. 

Fractional staffing is a new concept for a lot of nonprofits, but I find those that give it a try are really “getting it” when it comes time to renew with us. They come back and say, “Gosh it was a great year. We expanded our community outreach and our new newsletter was recognized with an award by our national organization. This year, we’d love to redesign our website.” Or, “Thanks to our fractional team we are now using our CRM much more optimally, and not the 4-5% of the features we were using before. Now I'm thinking I’d really like to prioritize a partnership program with corporations in our industry. What does that look like?” Then we move to what skills, expertise and backgrounds need to come into play to make that happen. What resources are already there? What volunteer relationships do they have? What do we need to make all of it work? That's how we approach the team.  

Of course, if your nonprofit has a team in place, you want to take care of your team and those people that you have brought on. But as you expand or positions become open, that's the time to really take a moment to rethink whether your current approach is the best strategy for building the right team.


Sean: Vicki, thank you for being here and sharing your knowledge and expertise. I know this will be valuable for the nonprofit leaders out there that are tuning into my show. Are there any other parting thoughts that you have for nonprofit leaders?

Vicki:  Another benefit to looking at fractional staffing is knowing that these folks are coming out of other clients and a variety of nonprofit sectors, so they bring current and wider expertise to your organization. It’s difficult to get stale when you've got these talented people bringing fresh perspectives to your team.

Stephen:  Vicki, thanks so much for being here, we really appreciate it.

Vicki: Thanks Sean, it was great.


To explore whether the people of The More Than Giving Co. can help your nonprofit scale impact, schedule a complimentary, 30-minute consultation with Vicki here.

Vicki Burkhart