Unlocking the Power of Connection in Leadership: A Conversation with Anne Nevel

Tasha: Good morning. Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit more about your nonprofit origin story?

Anne: Of course. I’m glad to be here. So thanks for inviting me. I’m Ann Neville. I’ve been in the nonprofit space the whole time since my post college years. So I w I had a, and my major was in social services area ish.

Anne: So government, I worked for a nonprofit organization and I still work for in the association space, which were all also nonprofits, but a different kind of nonprofit and. But still in this case, you know, a community of sorts where we advocate for their needs and educate and so forth.

Anne: So I’m on the education side of that. I’ve worked for both individual societies as well as trade associations. I’m currently with a trade association. And I also volunteer in different areas. So I have kind of, three general buckets. volunteerism. So I volunteer that I found kind of the grief space is one of my one of my spaces.

Anne: So, one of the organizations I volunteer with is called Camp Aaron and I it’s a grief camp for kids. I’m a volunteer there and another organization called Link Generations. My second bucket is older adults. So if I do have the time to spend in some facilities and spending time with older adults, I try to do that when I can, but more specifically with an organization called Link Generations that links younger adults, younger people with older adults.

Anne: And then finally, I am on the board, I’m actually the chairperson of the board for an organization called Assisting Families of Inmates. And so that’s a big piece of my involvement in the nonprofit space. And then finally, I did want to also mention, I have a women’s retreat that I run every year that I thought about when I thought about my nonprofit history or experience and at that retreat one of the women who has participated, has a nonprofit called the big fat tip where she gives out a surprise random thousand dollar tips to people in the service industry.

Tasha: Oh, so

Anne: that’s my retreat. We also, as part of the retreat, we go out for dinner when, or for a meal at some point during the event and give out

Tasha: a thousand. Oh my goodness.

Tasha: That is so cool. I’ve never, this is why I love talking to people in the sector. Because you can’t possibly learn about all the cool and amazing things out in the world if you don’t get talking to other people. You just love that so much. Oh my goodness. That’s amazing. What a origin story. The background is incredible.

Tasha: You can see your enthusiasm right away. And I know we connected the first time and I was like, oh, Anne’s so cool. But what’s your favorite part about, you know, your long history across many types of organizations, many missions in the sector.

Anne: So I think my favorite thing about all of it has to do with giving back.

Anne: And as I discussed to the buckets, they’re all because there’s a space to give back in some way. Even the last one with the big fat tip, cause it worked in the service industry at one point. So all of them and. you know, I guess related to a gift that I and you know, whether tha because when my mom was u and I spent some time in a lot of older adults and doing that, I realized it kind of giving back in th I’ve dealt with a lot of grief over the last few years, so kind of giving back and found that I was comfortable in that space in a weird way that I had no idea about.

Anne: So giving back and then also with the the families of inmates, I also have a personal story behind that as well as as a child. And my my background was in criminology and I started out my career working on with programs for inmates. . So in my giving back, it’s kind of coming back to that and using some of the experience that I’ve gained over the years and also giving back to a community that I care about.

Tasha: I think what you described is just like the magic of so many people that within this sector who are really just often leaning in.

Tasha: To I like to call it like the zone of genius. And you noted, you don’t even necessarily know this is your space or this is a space you belong in until sometimes you stumble into it and you’re like, Oh, wait, I can talk about grief. And it totally resonates with me so deeply.

Tasha: I lost someone when I was 15, very close to, and it changed me, but I, Think at the beginning that change was so much about the loss that I couldn’t even see how there was parts of it that changed me in a way that I can actually connect with other people in a different way, right? And so taking those lived experiences, I think sometimes people that work in this sector, they’re just really good at taking lived experiences and finding ways to create community around lived experiences and how to create a better world.

Tasha: Around like a shared lived experience, right? We are. Yeah. As a society.

Anne: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I agree with that. That was that’s one thing that I say to people to about grief or losing someone. I think every single time you take something away with that loss.

Tasha: Yeah,

Anne: absolutely.

Tasha: That’s amazing.

Tasha: I love so much of it. Now another, I think you’re going to have a really unique answer for this because what are some of the challenges you see? And maybe they’re going to be different as challenges you see as a volunteer versus challenges you see as a board member, challenges that you’ve seen when you’ve been working in government.

Tasha: What kind of things do you think are pressing for nonprofits that are struggling?

Anne: So interestingly, I think it’s all kind of the same. I think that funding in all of it is always the biggest challenge. Funding, I would say for what you want to do to and then I just also remembered something I wanted to say from the first question, but I’m going to stick on this for now.

Anne: So. funding and that there’s so many programs and organizations out there that I wish that more of them could collaborate. I have a very strong, like connecting brain as do you. So I’m always like, why can’t we just get everybody together and collaborate and connect and we can help each other.

Anne: We have the same, you know, purpose in mind and the same goal in mind. So I would say as somebody and as a helper and a connector, I find that to be super challenging knowing that there’s so many people out there with the same goal in mind, the same purpose in mind. And we all need money. I mean, we all need, you know, need money to do what we want to do.

Anne: Not to be like, we all need to make money, but in order to fund the awesome things that everybody is doing. So I think that challenge is top of mind anyway, for me. And part of the reason why I joined the non, the nonprofit community is that I want to be able to help try to make those connections.

Anne: Yeah. So I don’t know if I love that get into any of that, but the other thing I thought about, which is really unique in my, cause when you start talking about where I come from what is kind of unique is I have in my day job and what I do and working for nonprofits and organizations and government, I have been on.

Anne: That side of working with boards and committees and and running programs and things. And so then from my volunteer side, I have come from both sides of it at the same time. And so that’s something that I had hoped I could also give back by. At least being on a board for a nonprofit is that I can also relate to the people who are working in the organization from that perspective , but different.

Tasha: No, I think it’s fantastic because one thing, and it’s often a complaint in house, but everyone’s too scared to not have board members. So no one wants to talk about it very much, but you know, sometimes board members. Come in and you know, there’s always a little bit of a concern about the prestige of what it means to be a board member versus what the actual what does it actually look like?

Tasha: What is the role? No one wants to scare away board members by going, actually, your roles and responsibilities are all these, you know, everyone’s a little scared about it. But often. People with deep sector experience that actually have worked in it, done the work, are volunteering still, are doing all of these things, aren’t asked to participate on boards, they end up asking these people who live somewhat outside of the sector and bring in maybe great connections, business acumen, all of those things, but the inner workings of nonprofit are often complicated by a whole bunch of factors that exist outside of the general for profit.

Tasha: Space. So I actually think it’s brilliant that this organization is yeah, and come on let’s, because they’re going to get both with someone like yourself. Yes. I love that. Back to the challenges that you spoke about just because they were super interesting. I definitely see, you know, that collaboration piece.

Tasha: There hasn’t. There’s not great tools within the sector to go out unless you’re really self motivated and then you don’t even know what the answer is you’re going to get from the other organization, right? If you bring an idea to the table, there’s power imbalances where if one organization Has a ton of funders and money and they end up coming in with a lot of power compared to a smaller org that’s maybe struggling, the power imbalance can be quite large to try to figure out what to collaborate on and.

Tasha: So often I see a lot of smaller nonprofits and even bigger ones. Sometimes they’re able to get a grant. So they start X, Y, and Zed new program because that’s what the grant says they should do. But really there’s someone else out there, another organization that’s already doing that kind of work that if they collaborated and here’s our zone of genius, here’s yours.

Tasha: How much more power does that take? But I think there’s big fears about how to collaborate well. And it does. You know, that high being only a certain size is everyone’s.

Anne: Yeah. Yeah. I would say, you know, the funding piece of it is the real challenge. I think that for every, everybody experienced, at least everybody that I know experiences and the collaboration piece is probably, yeah, my pie in the sky.

Anne: Sky dream that I wish that could, I wish that could happen, but I do think it makes it that, I mean, it goes back to the funding piece obviously, because it’s like, yeah, where do you even start with who should be getting this versus you could just collaborate. So yeah, that’s my initial thought.

Tasha: I do think there’s a lot of nonprofits. It’s starting to feel like, yeah we’re doing something a little backwards here, but the way forward is kind of murky and unclear on how to get to that spot. So there’s, you know, 25, 2025 dreams and schemes there is figuring out how to push more collaborations.

Anne: Yeah.

Tasha: One of my questions that I always ask people is about peer support how do you find peer support factors into your success in your work?

Anne: , it’s nice to be able to one Whether commiserate or share ideas, you know, share your challenges so that maybe you can together come up with different, you know, ideas for how to solve those challenges or potentially work together. The collaboration piece, just going back to that part of it, whether it’s from the perspective that actually, that’s how I came to the nonprofit hive. I came across an organization that had the same constituents. So maybe even from that perspective, it’s not that we have to collaborate on.

Anne: you know, a project specifically, but also to learn that, you know, connect with the people that have the same constituents or that are serving the same population and have conversations about how we can, you know, help each other to help the same population. So I think that’s helpful to have.

Anne: To have that kind of community and support so that you can get people that might be serving the same populations you know, services to learn about at services. I do work for an organization, but the nonprofit that I see is is in need of my help on the board.

Anne: The board is lean and mean. They’re pretty small group and they do a lot at the board, the organization that, for which I’m on the board. Yeah, the words assisting families with inmates specifically is a very small organization and they do a lot.

Any extra needs for something new that comes up or a loss of a staff member is a huge hit so, just learning about other services that are out there people who can share tools and resources and things that we can utilize in the organization is what makes it really helpful.

Anne: Again, like I said, I think that’s more specifically to just being able to connect with other people in the nonprofit space from both sides of it. Yeah. One have people to kind of. bat around ideas and challenges and so forth to find out who’s who else is serving the same population and how can we, you know, help that same population together in a sense and reach even more people.

Anne: And then the other thing that I think to connecting with with folks within this community is. Again, back to just learning how many other nonprofits are out there and something else that just really warms my heart is being able to share those nonprofits that are out there. I would say even though I was sharing before that I’ve pretty much been in the nonprofit space they’ve been with bigger organizations primarily and.

Anne: Not always with things that I necessarily care about personally, like that I feel really passionate about, like supply chain or, you know, certain things that are just not, it’s still a nonprofit organization, but at one point when I went to work in this space, after kind of coming from the social services space, I stopped to think you know, when, how am I going to do what I really, how am I going to find the job where I can do what I really want?

Anne: feel passionate about and eventually learned that being able to volunteer, I can still fulfill those passions. And so more recently, I’ve just constantly wanting to share all the cool things people are doing out there. I created a a post, simply a post on LinkedIn where I’m sharing nonprofits.

Anne: That are doing cool stuff or just timely things. So being able to, you know, connect with people, more people in the community, I learned about more nonprofits that are out there. And so those are just, that also just kind of helps to fulfill that need, cause I don’t think I’m currently anyway, going away from my day job.

Anne: Not happening anytime soon that I know of anyway. So it’s a way for me to have an outlet to connect and connect with people in the space, share all the cool people, cool work other people are doing, see how we can collaborate potentially, how I can help because again, like I said, I have the experience on the other side of it.

Anne: Just something I think is really cool to my story. I think it’s kind of cool to my story and I love that it’s come kind of full circle is, you know, I shared that my, my interests in college were eventually around programs for inmates.

Anne: I got a job doing that really cool. I mean, it kind of evolved from my internship and providing programs, but even back then funding challenges, funding to, you know, we had grants and, you know, we had government funding for really cool programs.

Anne: One of the ones that I did and this was in 2000 was connecting connecting inmates with their children in this type of format, which wasn’t very utilized at the time. So we had webcam set up in community centers and. Churches and places where people could bring their kids and they had virtual visitation with their parents who They were very curious about what’s going on because they’re not around but they could have virtual visitation so when I Funding went away and wasn’t able to do those things anymore.

Anne: I eventually moved on to another organization that was kind of still in the same space But then I got into the association space and I kept trying to figure out how am I gonna? How am I going to get back there which I kind of talked about before? Long story short, 2020 happens and Hey, guess what?

Anne: People are wanting to figure out how their family members are going to visit them virtually in these institutions. So it was really kind of cool for me to be able to acknowledge that while I. Between that time and this time, I’ve been working at organizations where I’m providing education for people within these industries where we had conferences and in person events, but we’ve now had to turn them into virtual events.

Anne: And so I’ve gained even more experience in that. Also had that past experience specific to connecting families with their loved ones that were incarcerated. So, comes full circle, an organization I find out about is trying to figure out how they’re now going to connect. They’re going to connect these same folks.

Anne: in 2020. And so it was kind of a cool thing to be able to say, you know what? I have this experience now that I’ve gained since then I’ve done this. I’m passionate about this and I can bring it forward to volunteer and help out this organization. That’s kind of how I got involved.

Tasha: I think Some of us are just, I think, a little bit more hardwired to find it’s the, there’s a great quote, but it’s always be collecting dots so you can always be connecting dots, right?

Tasha: You have to be collecting, you have to be out there actively collecting to even find what could potentially come out of it. And I think a lot of people forget that. The people who kind of come across as power networkers and stuff like that. It’s but you know, not every conversation I have is a slam dunk.

Tasha: That’s crazy. That wouldn’t be the case, but sheer volume means that. I find more connections, find more opportunities for connections. Cause I’m willing to be out there collecting, and see what happens. And my Hive chat this morning was with a long time member, even though it was only, I think his second or third chat who is in Zambia.

Tasha: And as soon as he started talking about his mission, I was like, Oh, I’ve got five people you need to meet. Because he started talking about you know, some of the innovation they’re doing, solar energy, water and security. And I was like, you know, there’s this program you should apply for.

Tasha: It’s a virtual accelerated, it starts next month and there’s this and this. And it’s lovely to be able to do that. It’s lovely to be able to do that for other humans. And you know, I always look at it as it’s small, but small things add up over time. Like all those different, that work you’re doing, the volunteering, the women’s group, the, you know, that big tip is going to change somebody’s.

Tasha: Yeah. And for, you know, so I think I love all of that so much. And you’ve been a Hive member for a while. My last question is always, you know, what have you gotten out of being a Hive member so far?

Anne: Oh, being able to see where those opportunities are and potentially collaborating. Being able to find, you know, when we get nervous about how are we gonna get this done, knowing that there’s people out there not.

Anne: people out there that provide those services. But so far what I’ve experienced is those people are actually all very caring individuals as well. So I don’t feel like I’m just connecting with somebody out there who has a business. I feel like I’m connecting with someone who actually cares about the nonprofit space and cares about nonprofits.

Anne: So I feel like related to what you were saying, I’m collecting my dots. Yes. So many ways. So many ways. So I love that. I’ve never heard that phrase said that way, but I know that you and I share that, that I am, I start a conversation with somebody and my brain starts thinking, okay, you need to know, you need to know this person.

Anne: But also I feel. I will say as a board member, it’s interesting that I feel a little bit, I feel more secure in knowing that if we do run into those things, those problems at our organization, I have several other people now that are in my. My little, my community, my new community that I’m a part of it is really, I mean, I really, I feel it.

Anne: So thank you for that. Yeah good. I feel like I have a bunch of people already. And I mean, I haven’t been a member for that long but long enough and made enough connections because I love doing that. Like you said so that I can say, Hey, you know, what is that executive director? Who’s just had a traumatic thing happen.

Anne: In her life it’s going to be okay. And I feel like I have a lot of support, even more support behind me now, if I don’t know the answer to the question or I don’t know how we’re going to get that done. People have been really gracious to with you know, they may be providing a service, but they also share with me tools that I can find on their website or different things that.

Anne: You know, that they’re not asking for, you know, a fee for, they’re just wanting to share.

Tasha: I will say that like our consultant community, that’s part of the nonprofit hive are, I mean, people stay in mission driven businesses for the same rate. Like they’re not, no, they’re not. If this isn’t a place where you’re going to be a consultant and make millions and millions of dollars, they don’t, they usually are people who were in house and have chosen for a variety of reasons to not be directly in house anymore, but still want to support.

Tasha: And they want to, you know, like yourself with the buckets, they’re looking to keep their. Still want their buckets because they don’t want to leave, but yeah, no, it’s such a great community. This is lovely and I mean, I connected with you once myself before, that’s why I was like, I want to talk to Anne more about community and connection and being a Hive member.

Tasha: So thank you so much, Anne, you’re a delight and I love that there’s people out there like yourself who volunteering all over the place, board member all the things.

Anne: Thank you. I appreciate it. And I like I said, I think we share that, that interest in being out there and connecting the dots.

Anne: Absolutely. Collecting the dots.