In this client-engaging episode, Teri Beckman, Founder and CEO of HIGOL, shares how she and her team guide nonprofit leaders increase revenue and community influence by employing effective means to overcome challenges in growing their organizations.
You’ll discover
– The root issue of your fundraising problem
– How to avoid executive director burnout
– What not to do in a board meeting
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast and I am here with an exceptionally high demand coach, and that is Miss Teri Beckman. She’s the founder and CEO of high impact growth oriented leaders or HIGOL, I guess is how you title you’ll have to help me with that, Teri, but Teri and her team helped nonprofit leaders increase their revenue, and their community impact by an average of 50%, within 12 months of working together, which is astounding. I’ve done a lot of work in the nonprofit space. And I cannot tell you how impressive that is. Teri’s worked within the nonprofit sector for over 30 years, including five years as an executive director herself, she understand the leadership challenges, and has been a strategic advisor and consultant to executive directors and CEOs throughout the United States as they grow their organizations, teams and board of directors. Well, Teri, I’m so excited to have you here. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation, I love getting to speak back into the nonprofit space here at scale architects, about half of what we do is in that for profit world, and about half is in the nonprofit world, which is a little bit weird, a little bit unique, but it’s a lot of fun. And one of the things that that just jumped out to me was just the wealth of experience you have in the space. And I was wondering if we could start with your story. Tell us a little bit about what you were doing before you started working in this space, and how that led to this, this journey with high impact growth oriented leaders.
Teri Beckman
Yeah, thank you, Scott, I’m so happy to be here, I really appreciate the invitation. Some, my company will be 10 years old. This year, actually, I really can’t quite believe that myself, it’s gone so fast. And I honestly tell people, it took me five years to figure out what the heck I was doing. So I feel like really only five. But 10 years ago, I was an executive director in a pretty high pressure position. And felt after five years of being there that I was burning out. And I just needed, I needed a break. And so I left that position very deliberately not knowing what the next thing was, because I felt like if I just rolled into another CEO or Executive Director position, I would just recreate the world i i left and had burned out. And so I was I have a relationship with an organization in California, a long time relationship. And I went back there to do a retreat, a spiritual retreat. And at that time, there was a change going on. Within part of that organization, they have a publishing company, and they had a new director who wanted to do some consulting with the books that they were publishing, right to make those books more come to life. And those books really were about work, and how to really bring your whole being into work. And I had found in my career that that training just to have been so incredibly helpful in increasing my mind capacity. Like I didn’t really have trouble with the technical parts, like, you know, in in Western countries, we have access to so much technical information, right? What’s really challenging is being able to manage our own minds and lead our own minds. And so I was like, wow, this is really cool. I would love to get involved with this. Could I? Could I help you? Can we work together? They were in California, I was in North Carolina, they still said yes. And so we worked together, doing consulting work for about eight years. And that’s really they trained me. What was interesting, what, you know, we had, there were three of us. And then one person left. And you know, when you’ve got three seems to be sort of a bit of a magic number, and then one leaves and it’s sort of like, the stool now is something’s missing? Yeah. And we both realized this wasn’t working. But I needed, I wanted to continue the work. And the other person just had a lot of other responsibilities and interests, honestly. And so he said, you know, start your own business. And so that’s, that was the genesis.
Scott Ritzheimer
Wow. Wow. So fast forward. You’re you’re working with executive directors and leaders in nonprofit organizations. And I mean, just achieving tremendous results with them. What would you say some of the most important work you’re doing with your clients right now?
Teri Beckman
I think you know, Some of the most important work is when we can engage over longer periods of time. Because then you just you have the time to like fully implement, right, the changes in what you’re doing. So we’re in the middle of a, an 18 month project now with an organization has a new CEO, she’s been there a couple of years, very, very different than the founder, CEO that retired. And so she wanted to entertain a different kind of strategic planning process was much more engaged, really engaged her stakeholders and her team and really entirely new ways. But you know, part of the explicit goal was to help them break down their silos, and be able to measure their work in new ways, as well as get clear about what they wanted to create in the future. So we’ve just completed that plan that was about a six month process. And now we’re into the implementation for the next year. And I can just see, there’s just tremendous value to having that engagement over a longer period of time.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that’s yeah, there’s, there’s definitely something to be said about that. It’s interesting. We were, we were talking with a doctor about something for my son, and we had been to another doctor six, seven years ago. And the current doctor said something that really struck me as remarkable and pertains to what you said. And he said, you know, folks will go from one doctor to the next to the next if they don’t get an answer. But oftentimes, the best answers come when you come back to the same doctor six months later. Fascinating right? Now, that’s really hard to do. Because you go to someone and they have no idea, you know, the chances of you going back are very slim, you know, they’re not going to have any idea again, but that we have this tendency now, it was almost canceled culture, right? Like, if you don’t check every box, and give me this whiz bang, new idea. Like, I’m moving on to the next thing, right. It’s kind of microwave mentality and all that we’re doing. So what is it about? You from, from your side of things? What is it about that longevity? That’s so different from coming in? And trying to transform everything overnight?
Teri Beckman
Yeah, it’s a great question. I mean, it doesn’t usually work overnight. You know, occasionally, the stars are aligned. So can happen really fast. But it usually doesn’t. Right. So I think that’s, that’s the first thing that leaders need to understand. If you’re, if you’re really going for a change process, you know, you have to invest the time. And I don’t want to waste time, I don’t want to stall. But you get requires time, we’re talking about human beings. We’re not talking about machines or bots, or something, right. And so if you don’t take the time to get people’s buy in into a change process, and that’s even like coming out of my mouth, that sounds very trite. I mean, that there’s a whole process to that, right. It’s not going to work, right? And 75% of change processes don’t work. People spend hundreds of 1000s of dollars on that stuff. And they almost never work. Yeah. So that I think that’s part of it is the microwave mentality that, you know, just don’t waste your time and money. I mean, if you think this is going to happen in a month, it’s better not to do anything, a lot of times than to think it’s going to happen instantly.
Scott Ritzheimer
That is hard. But true advice. You know, people tell you to actually live that out. Like if you’re not going to commit especially in a larger organization where things are moving, like to get all those cogs spinning in a new direction. It does. It takes time it takes commitment. And I would I would agree with I think your assessment is so many times so much of these change, management programs fail, because we simply don’t have the commitment to carry it all the way through. So there was a bit in your bios, I was reading through it that that really stood out to me. And that is, you know, the, what would it be the seven letter word in the in the nonprofit world of revenue, very talking about money. And a lot of nonprofits really, really struggle to have any kind of focus or goals or desires around revenue. It’s like this necessary evil almost right. And so what would you say? How should a nonprofit leader, Executive Director or someone on the leadership team, what’s a healthy way for them to look at revenue?
Teri Beckman
Well, that’s what supports your impact? Right? I mean, you can’t have sustained community impact and change without the revenue to support it. And, you know, I agree people are, are very shy about setting financial goals, I think in part because they’re just haven’t built that muscle yet, you know, because like, as you say, in many nonprofit cultures, it’s, you know, the people are first like, we like to tell ourselves that, and I am very people centric, because I understand how human beings have, especially in this space, that’s such a vast influence over what happened is very important to work from a human perspective. But come on, these are businesses, right? I mean, nonprofit is a tax exempt status. That’s all right, it’s it. It’s a tax status. You know, you want to generate more revenue than expenses. So that, you know, unlike a private company, where the owner can take it out, or shareholders, you know, you need to pay your shareholders, you put it back into the company, and you continue to expand your work, right, and take it to the next level. That’s incredibly important, though, to be able to do that. Otherwise, what are you doing? Like, why do you really exist? If you’re not wanting that? Yeah. And that takes revenue?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. It’s so true. And where I found kind of the rubber meets the road is, is in time allocation. You know, I don’t think most people would go out and say, Hey, I don’t want any money, right? Like, no one’s gonna say, yeah, no, no, don’t don’t give me I don’t, you know, I don’t want money. But we also have a tendency not to want to do the work for money not to sometimes want to ask the questions for money not wanting to dedicate resources to generating revenue. And, and there’s this idea that like, well, if we build it, they will come, right. Like, if we do great work, then the money’s just going to kind of magically appear. Do you see that showing up? In your world? Or in your work? And how do you help folks overcome that?
Teri Beckman
Um, no, I mean, I think that’s a good question. Um, when I find, I mean, we’re actually, although I just brought on a consultant and associate consultant, we usually have some very good fundraising skills, but we’re really not a fundraising, consultancy. And what I find is, once they’ve got a really clear vision for what they want to do in the next period, whatever they that is three, three years, five years. And they start to align their resources behind that. Right, like, and we talked about this in your most recent blog, you know, how to get that org chart set up, right. So that human resources are aligned, actually behind an organized behind what you want to do the right people in the right seats with the right skills? Are your finances aligned behind what it is that you want to do? Are your partnerships align? And this is where it takes work, right? This is the thing that doesn’t happen overnight is that alignment, you know, behind this clear, shared, want to emphasize shared vision, and the board, that’s another major thing, right? It needs alignment. Once that stuff is aligned, I’ll tell you, the money almost magically comes because, you know, donors, foundations, government, they’re like, Oh, these people have it going on. And there, the CEO is clearly articulating the direction that they want to take the organization. And then it’s like, it’s a business proposition. So this is where we want to go, this is how we’re going to get there. And this is what it’s going to cost. Do you want to partner with us? Yeah. And, you know, if it’s a good fit, the answer is always yes. And if it’s not a good fit, that’s really good, too. Because then you know, okay, wrong partner. Right. Keep going.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, and it’s, it’s, like, I want to just pause on that thought for a second. So you’re creating this dramatic revenue change for organizations without teaching them how to do fundraising, basically, without your focus being fundraising. Like that’s, that’s gonna be kind of earth shaking for some folks because they’re thinking it’s like, you know, we got to pour more gas on the fire. We got to drive this thing harder. But the reality of it is like if you don’t have the structure to support it, right, folks are gonna see through that. And one of the things that’s that’s different about nonprofits than You know, oftentimes in the business world is you’re working you at any kind of scale, you’re working with larger donors more often than not, who they get, like they understand how business works, they wouldn’t be in the space that they’re in if they didn’t. Yes. And, and so they’re not afraid of the revenue thing. They’re not even afraid of the numbers that you’re asking what they’re afraid of is, what are you going to do when you get it? Can you waste it? Yes. Yes. Can Yeah, can you handle it? And, and if you come at that with a sense of like, Oh, we don’t like money, we don’t talk about money. It’s just what we need, so that we can do this thing, that you’re confirming that fear, right? Because they’re gonna, they’re gonna see that and like, Okay, do they really have their heads wrapped around? How they’re gonna, how they’re going to handle this? So points that I’d love to just kind of drill into some of the specific things that you’re helping folks. Again, because there’s, you’re having these huge transformations for for organizations you’re working with? What would you say? Are the levers that you’re helping them pull that are currently untapped? Or untapped before you work with them?
Teri Beckman
Yeah, that’s a great question. Um, what comes to mind immediately is the board. Right? The Board of Directors, most CEOs, and executive directors, what I hear is like, you know, when, when they’re relaxed, and they’re really, really talking to you, in the board is a pain in the butt. I’ve heard a CEO say to me, I’m really lucky, because my board doesn’t bother me. It’s not a good thing. That is not a good thing. You know, you want a fully engaged board. And I think, where a lot of a lot of CEOs and executive directors, you know, what I think the most common thing is that they waste these board meetings, where you’ve got like this, this treasure chest, so brainpower sitting in a room, and if they were paying them, it would be an extremely expensive meeting, right? And they’re basically reporting out to them. They’re reading reports, like, because they feel like they have to, you know, I need to make sure they know that I’m worth the salary. They’re paying me when I’m doing my job. So I’m going to report what did I do this last month? Or this last quarter? Oh, my God, what a total waste of time for these people. Send them the reports they know how to read. Do not do that in a board meeting. And so it’s sort of a question of how can you set up a board meeting that’s, I like to think of it like theater, like it’s a production. Yeah. And you’re finding ways they can really engage with the with the mission and with the vision, and bring to them your honest, strategic challenges, so that they can open doors for you so that they can remove those boulders so that they can bring the resources to bear? Yeah, the organization needs to go to the next level. Yeah. So that’s one seriously underutilized resource in most nonprofits. And then I mean, the team is another obvious one, right? If you have team members that are really not very engaged, you know, they don’t really know what they don’t understand their relationship to the vision and where you’re trying to go. They treat their job like a to do list and we’re just sort of they’re getting a paycheck. Next month, good situation. That’s the kind of growth that’s not a growth situation, right. That’s like, there, you know, then you become weights on the organization in the long term.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. You mentioned the board. And it’s such a great example of, you know, oftentimes, I think we overdo the difference between nonprofits and for profits, right? I think you’ve very rightly said like, they’re companies, right? They’re both organizations trying to achieve goals, what those goals are, is a little different, but you look at different goals between different companies. And those are radically different. And one of the areas that I see this a lot is like you’re saying, you know, CEOs, executive directors, like just despising the board process, not the people, but the process of it, and treating it like it’s this extra thing that I have to deal with, the businesses don’t have to deal with, you know, which, you know, isn’t all that true, even but I think what you did was, was so, so much wisdom in it, because you’re saying, Hey, this is a thing that you have, it’s not unnecessary evil. It is. It’s a tool that you leverage, right? Yeah. It’s it’s one of the most valuable assets inside the organization. And I know, I know, I know that there are people listening that need to hear that because you’re right. And I see this, you know, in my work is, if we treat the board like you know, it’s just this reporting thing that we have to do for legal purposes, we’re missing out so much. So, yeah, I love that you brought that up. And it’s so good for folks to hear is like, hey, that’s an asset that you can leverage it.
Teri Beckman
Right in front of you. Right? Yeah. It’s, it’s like literally money on the table. And I don’t mean like, I don’t want people treating our board like an ATM machine. I’m not saying that. But it’s, it is just such an underutilized resource. And, you know, we have a actually a case study on our website that talks about an executive director that I interviewed who was just a master at board engagement. And I just want people to hear this because it was it took him time to really cultivate that board that way. But Scott, he got to the point where annually, the board was writing personal checks for $2 million every year, completely unrestricted money, leveraging all this other money out of their companies and their foundations. So yeah, it can, it can be like that. It really can. And he probably spent, I think he said, got to the point where he’s spending about half this time with the board. And once he retired, and then set, he decided to sit on a bunch of boards, which he actually came to regret, because so few CEOs and corporate boards. Yeah, he wished he had spent more than 30% of his, like he recognized, I still did not fully leverage that thing.
Scott Ritzheimer
Wow. Yeah, that again, there’s just so much in that. I’d love to hear this, though. This is a question I’d like to ask all of my guests. And it’s this, what’s the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all? So for everyone listening today, what’s that one thing that you wish, every single one of them knew?
Teri Beckman
I think the biggest secret and maybe, you know, I think they know this, they just don’t really know how to solve for it. You know, that CEO position, it doesn’t really matter if it’s for profit or nonprofit, you are so friggin isolated. In the sense of you have no peers in your organization, right, you’ve got this board you’re reporting to, you have all the team members that are reporting up to everybody wants something from you, right? You have no peers, find a peer group, or at least find a way to be around peers at at whatever, you know, at some like staggered frequency across the year, so that you can really be with people that understand your unique perspective. And can you can support each other and you can learn like you, you don’t have to be an island alone, trying to figure this stuff out.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. I could not agree more with that. I remember, I was running things with my co founder for several years. And he was in the CEO spot, I was in the COO spot. And then he stepped out of the operations of the business. And I not only kind of lost the daily interactions with him, but I lost the daily interactions with those who kind of were my peers, right? There was a little bit of a difference, because it was an owner along the way. But I There are a few times in my life that I’ve felt as alone as I did in the early days of of leading that business from the top of the organization, because it’s it’s hard like, it seems like it’s a cushy job, right? It seems like you’re not the one doing this or that or you’re you make all the decisions or organization Yeah, like to have your way. And it’s very difficult to find people who understand the nature of those challenges, right? Who, who don’t add kerosene to the fire, right and make it worse, or who don’t just try and blow it off as like, you know, firstworldproblems or whatever the CEO version of that statement is and, and yes, finding, finding a place where where you can go or folks aren’t trying to get something out of you. is so so very important. And that was a lesson that took a long time for me to learn when I was leading.
Teri Beckman
Yeah.
Scott Ritzheimer
Excellent. Excellent. Well, I’ve got one more question. And then I want I want to know how folks can connect with you. Because I know there’s, there’s some in the audience here that’s just absolutely resonating with where they are. They’re seeing some of the mistakes they’re making, and they know they could do better. But before we get there, I’m gonna have you take off your coach, consultant advisor hat for a moment, put on your CEO hat, executive director hat and talk to us a little bit about what the next stage of growth looks like for you and your business and the challenges that you’ll have to overcome to get there.
Teri Beckman
Yeah, thank you. I, I think a lot about that. So that is very much top of mind for me. We were really fortunate last year to You double the volume of our business? And I would really like to do it again, this year to at least almost double it again. And it’s a different business than I think that’s a different business than what it was on January 1. Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s like figuring out how to accelerate without losing your mind. Yeah. And, like, iterating into a different business kind of on a continuous basis. So it is, it is a big challenge. It’s like finding the right partners, finding the right consultant partners to join the team, finding the right, the right clients, right, everybody is a good fit for us. And when it is a good fit, it’s like magic. You know, it’s like lighting. You know, it’s like lighting a match and watching just like, like, you know, just running because our, what I see is our acceleration helps our clients accelerate as well. You know, as we learn, then they’re learning from lots. So it’s, you know, it’s a virtuous cycle in that way. But I think continuing to expand my own mindset and, and coming, overcoming my own fears around growth. And just, you know, being willing to hold my self accountable for that. Sense of my greatest challenges.
Scott Ritzheimer
Wow yeah, that’s that as well, I think you could bottle that up. And that’s about it for just about every CEO out there. I think that that is the nature of the challenge right there. How do you scale up without losing yourself? Both culturally, as an organization and just our sanity, right, as individuals? It’s because it’s not worth it, if it if it takes that much, but excellent. So how can folks find more out about your work? How can they get in contact with you?
Teri Beckman
Yeah, thank you for asking. Our Our website is higol.co. No M on the end. And, you know, for executive directors and CEOs that are, you know, have revenues over $5 million. We do quarterly executive forums, we’ll have another one coming up in July. They’re complimentary. And it’s a, you know, probably anywhere from eight to 15 or 16. Folks, where we’re discussing a specific topic that is unique to senior leadership. And this is one way to get connected right? To sort of a wider space of truly your peers and and walk away very refreshed and new ideas that you know, they can execute on.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. I love that you guys are doing that. Because it’s one of the things in the nonprofit world that I don’t think has caught on or given and been given enough credit like it has in the for profit world, there are a lot more there’s the vestiges and the E O and the YPO. And there’s a lot more of that I found in the for profit world and and nonprofits can join those, that’s fine. But being alongside other nonprofit executive directors, right folks who are operating at the level that you are fighting the same battles that you are doing it in the same world that you are, in that there’s there’s just something really special about that. So if you’re an executive director of $5 million, plus, you want to grow your organization and you want to do it around like minded people do not miss this opportunity for the July forum.
Teri Beckman
Thanks Scott.
Scott Ritzheimer
Excellent, excellent. Well, Teri, thank you so much for being on the show. It was just such a pleasure having you here and for everyone listening your time and attention really mean the world to us. So thank you for being here. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Teri Beckman
Teri Beckman is the Founder and CEO of High Impact Growth Oriented Leaders or HIGOL. Teri and her team help nonprofit leaders increase revenue and community impact by an average of 50% within twelve months of working together. Teri has worked in the nonprofit sector for over thirty years, including five years as an Executive Director. She understands leadership challenges and has been a strategic advisor and consultant to Executive Directors and CEOs throughout the United States as they grew their organizations, teams and board of directors.
Want to learn more about Teri’s work at HIGOL? Check out her website at https://higol.co/
Podcast Booking Status: Open
We are looking for podcast guests, and we want to share your story.
Are you a coach, consultant, or advisor for entrepreneurial organizations? If so, let’s do a great show together – and we can promote you to our audience on all our social media channels, website, and email list.
Guest requirements:
- As a coach, you should be experiencing some very good momentum AND be grossing $100K or more annually. We’ll be talking about how you help your clients achieve extraordinary results.
- Consider yourself as equally people and results-oriented in your mission.
- High-authority expert management and independent coaches who work with founder-led entrepreneurial organizations of 40 or more employees. We also encourage guests that are operations/strategy and culture consultants, advisors, and leadership coaches to be guests (no specialties in marketing, branding, sales, or IT, please
- Please, no new coaches (under 3 years), published authors, non-independent coaches, or non-business coaches/consultants.