In this vision-packed episode Cherian offers nonprofit leaders a bigger vision for the future AND the path to get there!
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello everybody Hello and welcome. Welcome to our next episode of the secrets of the high demand coach and I’m here with a friend of mine and fellow Scale Architect, Cherian Koshy. He’s the Chief Development Officer for endowment partners LLC, leading the firm’s fundraising Solutions Division. unique among investment firms Chairman’s division provides consulting services to the firm’s clients, including feasibility studies, capital campaign counsel, and strategic planning services to grow annual and endowment revenue. It’s fascinating. Like I mentioned, he’s a fellow Certified Scale Architect. And as you would likely guess, for his bio, he focuses his time and energy on helping nonprofits achieve Predictable Success. cheryan I’m so excited that you’re here. Welcome to the show.
Cherian Koshy
I’m thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me on.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah fantastic so I’d like to start off with just hearing the background story. How did you get into the kind of coaching consulting advising work that you do? And why nonprofits?
Cherian Koshy
Yeah, absolutely. So I joke about this being my first for profit job ever since I graduated high school, I’ve always worked in nonprofits, I started knocking on doors on the mean streets of Minneapolis and then progressed through small and midsize organizations to ultimately lead fundraising at a different organizations. And so I’ve always been working in nonprofits in some capacity, mostly in fundraising, but a little bit in programming. And, and really have always had a sense of trying to, I’ve got to figure this out on my own. And so I’ve really sought out mentors or coaches to help me along that process. And now I’m just really blessed to have the opportunity to be that for other people. So I have a couple of individuals that I work with, but lots of clients of the firm that I get to work with, not in a kind of piecemeal process, but a long term coaching and consulting role for all clients of the firm. So it’s really exciting to be part of that, and to be engaged in the work that we do.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s awesome. So tell us a little bit about like nuts and bolts, what is the specific work that you’re doing? And then I want to tack a second question on to that, which is why is it so important to engage long term like that? What’s the primary benefit there?
Cherian Koshy
Absolutely. Well, let me give you a couple of examples. We’re an investment firm. So I can’t give you names of organizations. But we have a number of organizations that come to us that are really small, that just are trying to figure out how to raise money in this environment. And the they need to diversify the ways in which they raise money, they need to diversify their donor base, they need to figure out as we talk about a lot, you and I, that predictable success model for their organization and for their fundraising. So small organizations $100,000 in revenue, and we help them get started, get them into the process of understanding how to build that sustainability, then for most of our clients are either on one side or the other. They’re on they’re in. They’re in Whitewater for the for the most part, I would say many of them are in Whitewater. And they’re struggling to kind of get a foothold into building out plan giving systems doing capital campaigns. So we have a client who’s a large arts and cultural organization that is topping up their endowment, they’ve got a pretty substantial endowment, they want to raise that so that they can weather the future storms that might occur. We’ve got some organizations that are building buildings and need help. They’ve never really navigated that before. So they need soup to nuts figuring out what is the right way to go about doing that. And then other organizations that really have have been on the hamster wheel of running through their annual kind of fundraising strategies, and it really hasn’t ever broken through. And so we we go through and diagnose that. And to your point. What I think is, the the issue with a lot of consultancies in the nonprofit space is it’s sort of project based, it’s a deliverable. But when you think about it, from a macro level, from a long term perspective, what you really need is this guidance that walks you through a longer period. And that’s why I really love our model, because you’re already a client, the firm and now, we don’t, we don’t charge you extra except for certain projects. But for the most part, we’re with you all the time. If you need help. And we set up these regular check in calls to make sure that you’ve set these goals you’re on track for these goals when things change contextually, which they always do. We walk with you through those changes. So I really think of coaching as this long term process of, of dealing with twists and turns in the road, not just the Hey, I’m going to point you in the right direction and set you off on your way.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that’s brilliant. Now what One of the things that’s fascinating about particularly the work that you guys do in the nonprofit space is vast majority of nonprofits at least start out thinking we’re nonprofit, which means we don’t have profit, let alone think about investment or endowment or, you know, having money left over each year. Can you help help us to understand as a nonprofit? Are you allowed to end the year with profit? Should you and what’s the kind of what are the first baby steps you find a lot of these especially smaller organizations taking,
Cherian Koshy
it’s sort of funny that you mentioned baby steps, because we we sort of think about it for small nonprofits around that Dave Ramsey mindset of creating those baby steps. So first of all, let me just say that nonprofit is a tax status, not a business plan. So if you end the money, and the year with no money, you have, you’re not a going concern, you are not an organization that’s going to sustain itself. And so I can tell you, you know, one of the things that in addition to being a coach and consultant, I also serve on a lot of boards, nine, in fact, currently, and one of them is our church board. And about six, seven years ago, my pastor was was really concerned about our, our giving, and the he was quite literally up at night, because he was trying to square up what they were spending what they were bringing in. And he was looking at the financials every single week. And it caused him to not focus on other things and just be anxious all the time, about that piece. And so we went into the budget and and reconfigured it so that we were spending less, and saving more, just like Dave Ramsey teaches us to say, we’re going to create this emergency fund, right, we’re gonna start with $1,000. And I would say for for any nonprofit organization, or any business, honestly, you did the same thing, you build up a cash reserve, so that you can weather an emergency situation. And where the line is, in terms of your reserve account is going to vary between organization and organization. But you want to have some cash reserves. So if there’s a recession, if there’s a pandemic, if there’s a, you know, a roof leak, or something like that, you’re not scrambling to figure out how to solve that problem, you have reserves that can get you through it. So we coach and counsel organizations, as I said, long term through multiple fiscal years of budgeting to say, how do we take those dollars and some of it needs to remain in our savings account, some of it which we don’t need for three to five years, are things that we can put into a conservative reserve account to make us some money. While we’re waiting to spend that that would be something like, we have a roof top HVAC unit that we know is going to go sometime in the next five years. But we don’t know when we want to have that money set aside ready to go. But then there are other funds that are long term funds. Now, they don’t necessarily need to be an endowment. We do have clients who have sizable endowments, but they don’t necessarily need to be these permanently restricted, we never touch the principal, they could be something where we say we know that we’re going to have to renovate this building, we’re going to need new, new H back or new windows or something like that for our building. 1020 years from now there’s useful life for everything in a building, right? So like, I need new siding on my house. And it’s 20 years, the house is 20 years old. So nonprofits need to start thinking about that. And then how do we save for those long term expenses? How do we use those savings in a way that is cognizant of the responsibility that we have to our donors and to the mission overall, and creating a sustainable plan for our organization for the long term?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that’s good. What are some of the things that you find? You know, now, your clients? What What are they doing in trying before they hire you? Right? Because it’s obviously you know, coming in, you’re going to help them create some pretty monumental shifts. What is it that that you find them trying that doesn’t necessarily work before they they finally make the leap and work with you?
Cherian Koshy
Yeah, so I would, I would say that a lot of that no organization is the same, but so there’s sort of different variations of what this looks like. But it comes back to that hamster wheel approach. They’re they’re running in circles, but not getting anywhere. And so the whitewater analogy is really a good analogy. They’re, they’re paddling like heck, but not really getting anywhere. And they’re not really sure why. But what what I can tell you for most organizations, whether for profit or nonprofit in the whitewater stage, it has quite a bit to do with looking at what other people are doing, what other organizations are doing and trying to import that success into your organization. When the DNA doesn’t match up. It’s a very much like trying to splice, you know, an apple tree and an orange tree together and make those two things work. You’re like, ooh, that tree has a lot of fruit and that fruit looks really good. But when you put it into your organization, for some reason, it doesn’t work. And you just, and rather than saying, We were wrong in the first place, you try to grab a pear tree or a banana tree and it, it just doesn’t work. And time and time again, we walk into nonprofit organizations, small or large, like even like, you know, I shouldn’t say gigantic, but really large Community Foundation, where they’re, they’ve been trying to say, oh, that’s what this other community foundation, that’s what this other hospital, that’s what this other church does, let’s do that. And it doesn’t really work with their DNA. And because of that, it doesn’t allow them to grow. And they get frustrated and overwhelmed. And all of the other adjectives though, that I think anyone who’s in a nonprofit knows.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Excellent. Now, in your opinion, and I’ve found this is particularly true in the nonprofit space is this idea of especially hiring a coach, nonprofits tend to be pretty good at asking for advice. You know, it’s typically free advice. But I know I’ve, I’ve done this, and I’ve recommended that several others. Like, I don’t give free advice to clients, because free advice is almost the worst thing that you can do, because there’s not enough motivation to actually follow it. But now you know it, so you’re kind of responsible for it. So, in your opinion, not all I like to ask who needs to coach, but I want to ask you specifically, how should a nonprofit wrap their mind around paying for the services of a coach?
Cherian Koshy
Absolutely. So I would, I would say, first and foremost, everybody needs a coach, everybody needs some sort of coach, I’ve, I’ve had a coach in some way, shape or form since I was 14 years old. And it has been indispensable in helping me to grow. And basically, to understand what the blind spots are, right? Where where are their blind spots in my own life, in my personal life in my professional life and my career to help me, you know, as Rita, oh, shoot, I forgot her last name. But there’s a book called seeing around corners by Dr. Rita, something that I’ll send you afterwards. But you need someone who has been around that corner, who says, Here’s something to think about or deal with. And when you are when you’re a nonprofit organization, and you’re collectively asking for advice, it really is what what I consider sort of the seagull effect where someone comes in, they squawk they make a lot of noise, and then they fly away. And the reality is that there may be some sort of Epiphany in that moment. But if there isn’t accountability and implementation, and long term follow through, then all of that is for naught. Right? Like, Ooh, that was an interesting idea. And you see this with with strategic plans, and fundraising plans, and all these other different things that sit on a shelf and gather dust is some someone came in, you know, gotcha all riled up and motivated. And then and you thought it was a good idea. But then it didn’t translate into actual practice. And so now you’re back on the hamster wheel. You know, one full rotation later, same song different birds,
Scott Ritzheimer
Man. It’s so true. So true. So all right. So here’s the moment I know I’ve been waiting for, I think our audience has been waiting for as well. But I’d like to ask you what is the biggest secret that you want to share today to help founders and leaders, particularly of nonprofit organizations to grow their organization to greater heights, but do it without the stress that you talked about with your pastor earlier?
Cherian Koshy
Yeah, absolutely. So I think the biggest piece of advice is to see the big picture, right. And that is to step back from the day to day situation that you’re in. And if you look at it from a 30,000 foot view, if you if you extract yourself from what you feel has to be done today, or what needs to be done for the next week, or whatever, and and say, what does it look like to really be successful? Five years from now, or 10 years from now, or as I’ve said, another podcast 40 years from now, when you start to look at it from that perspective, some of the ups and downs that are happening, some of the franticness starts to dissipate. And now you can get to clear sight and say, Ah, okay, here’s where we can get to a plan or a set of goals. And I like that I was talking to you before about taking my kids camping at for scouts. And one of the things that they tell you when you get lost in the woods, is don’t panic, don’t start wandering and in multiple different directions. Stay put. And so in that same vein, what leaders need to understand is when when things get messy, and they get scared, it’s scary. We start to like, do things in order to make ourselves feel like we’ve got momentum and we’re doing things and that there’s there’s something that’s happening so An activity replaces insight. And when what everyone really needs to understand is if you just pause, and you step back from the situation, now you can have a clear, calm head about what’s happening. And that’s where I think a coach really has tremendous value is separating you and saying, Scott, let’s let’s take a breath. Is this really what aligns with your values? Is this really what aligns with your goals? Is this really what you want to do right now? And that that accountability partner that that long term relationship, a trusting relationship, is what enables you to say, yeah, I, we shouldn’t scramble to do this thing. We can take a beat and say, This doesn’t comport with what we need to do. But that does. And that would be the right course of action.
Scott Ritzheimer
Right? There’s a saying that I’ve heard that. It’s one of my favorite quotes. And I’m not even going to pretend to remember who it was by that’s avoided me as well. It’s a great day for quoting. society grows great. One of the founding fathers, I think society grows great when old men plant trees under who, under whose shade they will never sit. And one of the things that I see happening at a leadership level in a lot of organizations, is that the same calling not for society, but for leaders. Right, what’s the what is your vision for the organization that it succeeds and exceeds your time at the organization? That’s what I love your 40 years, right? So because it’s like, I can influence the next four years, right? If I can, will something to be in kind of my own strength been doing? That’s a big part of the problem that you’re experiencing. But it’s possible, but you can’t will something 40 years from now?
Cherian Koshy
Right. Yeah, absolutely. And, and that’s where I think we get into a lot of trouble is, we think, too small about kind of what our influence could be. And so when it comes to leadership, in particular, I think the vision has to be replication, right? We have to when when I’m on a board, or when I coach, nonprofit boards, and I do presentations, one of the key components of that is how can you find someone who will replace you? What are the specific tools for, for you to help grow someone who will take on this mantle, and move this piece forward. So I love that quote about trees, I’ve used that in, in other settings. And I combine that with what I think is true about nonprofits and the the true calling the the vocation of working in an impact sector, which is that we should never be afraid of work that has no end. And I truly believe that about almost everything in the nonprofit space, whether it’s hunger, or homelessness, or arts and culture or environment, whatever it is, we are always doing work, we might minimize time spent in hunger or time spent in homelessness, we might, you know, have a some sort of accomplishment in the arts or some sort of, you know, clean the water moment. But we are going to have to work at these things in perpetuity. Right. So our, if our mindset is really about that, that absolute long term that we won’t ever see, really any sort of completion of the goal, then we can reframe what we do in the interim, to say, I’ve got to get other people around me, I’ve got to get an army of ambassadors and other believers who can get around this and move this piece forward.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. So now I’ve had the opportunity of working with enough coaches that I know, we tend to have a knack for spending all of our best time and energy on our clients and can forget to or neglect to spend time developing and working on our own organizations. So if you would put your own kind of executive hat on take your coach hat off for a second and tell us what you’re doing to grow your division in your your business. What does that next phase of growth look like for you?
Cherian Koshy
So for for us and my group in particular, it really comes back to replication it is it’s really about not not approaching it from a I have this intellectual capacity or you know, protected information or relationships. But really how can we distribute that significantly train other people up so that we can really scale up our the work that we do and serve even more organizations? And then I think also most importantly, we are actively seeking to partner with other coaches and consultants because we know that we can’t do it all. There are certain things that we do really well and we want to be the go to entity the guy to firm, particularly when it comes to what, what we’re uniquely suited to do, but we don’t have to play Hungry Hungry Hippos and try and grab it all. And so we do a lot of thought leadership, a lot of external referrals in order to, to make sure that that we’re doing the best we can for the sector more than just for our firm. So we we firmly believe that with that mindset, the the work that we’re doing will continue to grow our firm in ways that will hopefully achieve predictable success.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic. I love that. Excellent. Well, I know some folks are listening, we’ve got quite a number of folks in the nonprofit sector, and some of them are saying, Hey, I like either yes, activity versus insight, like we’ve done activity all day long. But you know, we’re lacking on insight or, or even the accountability piece that you talked about in that long term relationship. So if someone’s out there saying, Hey, I’d love to know how I can connect with you and learn more. How can they do that?
Cherian Koshy
Absolutely. So the firm is endowmentpartners.com. And then I have my personal website at cheriankoshy.com The best thing to do is honestly follow me on LinkedIn, a lot of free content is distributed there. I do a bunch of webinars podcasts like this, to kind of share what what the quote unquote secret sauce is. And I’d love for you to take a look at it and comment on it. Let me know what is helpful and what’s not.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s fantastic. So endowmentpartners.com, or check out Cherian on LinkedIn. I know I follow him there, and there’s tons of great content. So I’d encourage you guys to do that. Thank you so much for being here. It was an absolute pleasure having you on the show. And I just want to say thank you to our audience. Again, your time and attention mean the world to us. It’s such an honor to get to share with you today. I look forward to seeing you next time. Take care
Contact Cherian Koshy
Cherian is the Chief Development Officer for Endowment Partners, LLC, leading the firm’s fundraising solutions division. Unique among investment firms, Cherian’s division provides consulting services to the firm’s clients including feasibility studies, capital campaign counsel, and strategic planning services to grow annual and endowment revenue.
He’s also a Certified Scale Architect and as you would likely guess from his bio focuses his time and energy on helping nonprofits achieve Predictable Success.
To find out more about Cherian, visit http://www.cheriankoshy.com, and https://www.endowmentpartners.com to learn more about his exciting work.