Courtney Harrness: The Power of Relationships in Building Stronger Nonprofit Communities

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

Courtney: Sure. Thanks for having me. And my origin story, I think, is like a lot of nonprofit professionals I fell into the nonprofit field almost 20 years ago without even knowing that it was the nonprofit field.

Courtney: And so I had yeah, literally for about a year. I had a, what I thought was going to be a career in college athletics. I was working at a division one college athletic department as an athletic trainer and decided that I wanted to get more into the broader audience of folks. And that’s where I.

Courtney: fell into a YMCA job. Really hilarious story. I showed up to the interview in jeans and a hoodie and really, yeah, I mean, you can’t make it up. This is how it all happens. Right. And just had a, an awesome interview and I really loved the role and it felt like it was so. Perfect for me working in a fitness center of a Y working with kids in a kids fitness center brand new with curriculum and programming there.

Courtney: And that’s how it started December of 2006. And I had no idea what the YMCA was. I had no idea. What non profit work was and over the course of the next handful of years there in Springfield, Massachusetts I got to do so much incredible work So many cool projects and meet so many awesome people literally all over the world since 2011, it’s just been the thing that I want to do and those experiences and the people that for one reason or another trusted me with those experiences is what put me on this path.

Courtney: And I learned a really A lot of really important lessons from incredible leaders that allowed me to learn, allowed me to fail, allowed me to try and iterate and said, Hey, I think we might want to do this. Do you want to help? And I just got to do so many different things that opened my eyes to the possibilities.

Courtney: I think.

Tasha: That’s fantastic. Fantastic. I will say oftentimes we hear so frequently about. Nonprofit leadership and not getting those opportunities to try new things and everything. So I love that your story is full of experimentation and leadership that allowed you to try new things and jump in because I think that’s so required in this sector.

Courtney: Well, yeah. And thanks for saying that. And it really molded my leadership style. It gave credence or it almost gave me permission to be bold. To do alongside folks to try and say, Hey, if the communities that we’re in or working with or working alongside or these partners out there exist, and we know that there’s this.

Courtney: Social challenge. Let’s get after it. Like, let’s just get after it. And if we mess it up, it’s not going to get any worse. So let’s try a solution. Let’s find some partners. Let’s find some folks in the community. Let’s all gather around and let’s really do it. And so, you know, that’s been a big part of how I show up as a leader and as a manager in terms of, hey, let’s all share our issues.

Courtney: Let’s all share our challenges. And it doesn’t matter if it’s the custodial supervisor or the admin assistant or someone in another program area. If someone’s got a good idea and we can all get some momentum behind it, let’s try it and see what happens. And so that’s been really fun too in my career, really fun.

Tasha: I love that. And what is your favorite part about working in this beautiful sector?

Courtney: Oh, I talked about it a little bit, but there. There is literally no other job in the universe and being a nonprofit leader and understanding that you have almost as much creative freedom as you want to solve the biggest societal issues.

Courtney: Of entire generations and you know, I don’t go in and clock into an office and work in spreadsheets all day, like in finance, I go from either my desk or into an office to try to figure out solutions to. Challenges that are monumental and have lasted sometimes generations and go beyond symptoms.

Courtney: Go beyond symptoms to how do we get to a root of this issue? And how do we work in and around communities with partners? To solve. And the wildest thing about that, Tasha, is that if we’re really doing the work in the way that I think it’s meant to be done every single day, we wish that we don’t have a job, right?

Courtney: And that I think the folks that really believe that they’re putting these positions to solve those great big problems can attack those problems with bold leadership, with vision, right? With the opportunity to bring communities in to learn, understand, to gather from lived experience and to work with partners to do it because I don’t think any one organization can solve any one problem that exists.

Courtney: And for me, the complexity of it all is the piece that I love the most.

Tasha: I think that’s cool. I, the angle you’re coming at Courtney is so fantastic because it’s one of power. Like I think you walked in a nonprofit. there’s a lot of feelings of powerlessness, right? Like due to often financial constraints, resource constraints, and, you know, even just staffing issues, right?

Tasha: You feel very powerless in it, but maybe the power comes from like truly what you are accomplishing. Cause I think so often when we don’t hit metrics, we put these arbitrary numbers out or maybe their numbers. Like, Hey, we want to feed this many families because this is how many families need the help.

Tasha: Right. And so the goal is often audacious. It’s big. It’s solving like, you know, that’s some of the biggest problems facing society for generations, but we’re not often very good at instead, like leaning into the power that we’ve even solved a fraction of this. That’s huge. Even if we got incrementally closer every year.

Tasha: Started building out the partnerships, building out the foundation to solve the problem. That’s enormous. And I, you know, I think too often, yeah, we just kind of. As a sector highlight to what we haven’t managed to accomplish versus the things we are really crushing.

Courtney: Well, and because it’s easy, right?

Courtney: Human nature is to get on a call like this and say, Oh, we’re so resource restricted. And. We can’t accomplish the things that we want to do because of these restrictions. Like human nature is to get on that and we can commiserate on that for probably three days without stopping. All of the ways, all of the excuses that we have to not do anything.

Courtney: And when I say society’s biggest challenge is that can be one neighborhood, one school district, one county. one state, whatever it is organizations that exist, you know, of course there’s some that are in national federated models and they all kind of roll up to each other. But for the most part, that’s not the case.

Courtney: And so if you’re solving for a challenge in your community, That’s the societal issue. You know, we’re not always talking about globally. I think if we all rally around each other to understand that in spite of or regardless of those restrictions, we can solve that problem with our community and with our partners.

Courtney: in our community, then as that cascades and as we gather momentum, I think we see a really powerful change occur. And it gives us the freedom to not play small, right? And the freedom to kind of approach challenges in a way of saying, you know, it’d be really easy just to go on cruise control for 20 years and just provide.

Courtney: solutions to symptoms. But where does that serve anyone? You know, I think that’s a really big, important piece of how I show up.

Tasha: Those are really good points. I really like that. And I do see often the innovation level and creativity is that much higher and smaller nonprofits and they take bigger swings.

Tasha: The impact may look smaller because like you’re noting, it’s often very local or it’s hyper focused within a specific community. They’re, the risk taking is higher and maybe because they feel like they have less to lose than those huge federated nonprofits that have thousands of employees and they’re functioning completely differently in, in how they run.

Tasha: And they may have had roots similar to the smaller nonprofit, but I do think that that risk taking behavior. In larger nonprofits. It’s tougher. It, you know, I, and not that they don’t want to solve the problems, but I think because they do, but they’re also very much a more businessy kind of, right?

Tasha: Like, I don’t know that all nonprofits are still focused in on that. Let’s solve the problem. So we all get out of a job, right? Like that becomes a weird pull, but

Courtney: nature too, because we’re so used to habits and we’re so used to routines and certain behaviors, and I’ve said this for a long time, you know, I’ve worked for a nonprofit with 185 million budget with a 65 million endowment.

Courtney: And, you know, we say, Oh, there’s this pressing homelessness issue in our community. And in my head, I go like, well, we can solve that tomorrow. We’ve got the support. We can convene the partners. We’ve got the money. And so what’s stopping us and what’s stopping us sometimes. Is that if we solve it, we don’t know what to do.

Courtney: We don’t know what’s our business case. What’s our vision if we actually solve the problem. And I go like, wow, wouldn’t it be cool to like get to solve another one after that? Wouldn’t it be cool. to be able to be a model to say, Hey we were able to convene these partners and we piece together, you know, chunks of funds to be able to stop it.

Courtney: And I think when I look at donors and funders like Mackenzie Scott I think that’s what our money is for. I don’t think it’s to go into an endowment to rip off a million dollars a year in investment income. I think it’s to solve problems and I think that the smaller ones, the smaller nonprofits understand that they’re the ones that will drive the real meaningful change.

Courtney: Yeah, I definitely see we have a couple members at the nonprofit hives that are really focused in the foundations are focused in on sustainability. Right? So, so the money is never meant to go towards buying meals. Not that’s not needed. It’s going towards the infrastructure so that meals is never like food security is just not a thing anymore.

Courtney: Right? In that particular location. And then they’re taking that model and just replicating it often across Okay. Very you know, countries and communities that are in Africa or South America or whatever, because in some ways those communities are willing to, they’re willing to try whatever.

Courtney: Any solution that is

Courtney: presented. Yeah.

Tasha: This is a solution. Okay. We’re ready to try it. And, you know, so I think that’s one of the beautiful things. The sustainability conversation is huge, but I wanted to also, and we kind of already went into this, but what are in your long career and What are some of the challenges that you frequently see?

Tasha: And I know we’ve already touched on that.

Courtney: I think the big challenge is really for me, understanding a solid foundation and the solid foundation for me is always in belonging. It’s always in relationships. It’s always in connection. And I think that’s why my experience honestly with the nonprofit Hive has been so meaningful because That’s how the foundation is set.

Courtney: And so, you know, there’s so much, and we talked about challenges around money or restrictions on resources or funding or solving problems, those challenges as long as we let them will always exist. But if we’re, if our solutions are rooted in relationships and belonging and human connection, the ability to see beyond ourselves or our mission statement and be in active in communities with partners.

Courtney: That is so hard to get to because there are so many emergencies every day. We know that there’s so many things, there’s so many meetings, there’s so many restrictions slowing down to allow ourselves To foster that sense of belonging and to foster those relationships is the biggest challenge. I really believe if more nonprofit leaders spent more time in that space, it would be remarkable to see how many of those restrictions just start to go away, how many of those challenges start to go away.

Tasha: When your resource constraints, and I mean, I’ve worked at many small businesses, volunteered with many small nonprofits, when resources are a constraint on any kind of resources, a constraint, we become very reactive, right? The ability to be proactive often requires a little bit of space, a little bit of, like you said, that slow down, that thoughtfulness.

Tasha: And that’s really hard to do when the needs are very pressing and the needs in most societies worldwide have never been deeper. Right. So, but, you know, I’m a huge advocate for this relationships,

Courtney: deep

Tasha: connection, I think community can sustain a lot of nonprofits if they leaned into their community, if they figured out how to engage.

Tasha: With their community in more meaningful ways, I think they’d be shocked at how often people will step up to the table and they’ll go, I’ll take that on. Right. And it’s, it goes beyond maybe a more formal volunteer structure. And, you know, we need to give people different ways to engage because sometimes they can financially engage.

Tasha: Sometimes it’s volunteering. Maybe it’s social media support. Who knows? But I think if we don’t give people the roadmap on how to engage with us in community. They just don’t do anything, not because they’re not interested, because they haven’t been invited to do so, I think, often.

Courtney: Yeah, that’s the, and that’s the challenge, right?

Courtney: To go back to belonging and relationships. That’s the challenge for non profits to, to consider how the community engages. With their work beyond their symptomatic solutions. So like beyond engaging as a volunteer, beyond engaging as a donor, what are the ways that people are really, that really belong? to your organization?

Courtney: What are the relationships that exist? What is the trust level in your community? So people know when you put out a new strategic plan or a new funding request or a new event, they know beyond a doubt that is so important that they have to show up regardless if they have any money to give, regardless if they have any time to volunteer, they just have to show up.

Courtney: And that means different things for different people. in different communities. But the reality of it is that’s the challenge, right? Like when we’re looking at solutions to these societal issues, we have to step back. We have to go into communities. We have to go at it with partners. It’s the same thing with organizational challenge.

Courtney: When we’re seeing these organizational challenges, we have to step back and build relationships and try to understand that connection and that belonging so that we can be a better organization. And I really do believe that spending as much time on relationships as you do innovation is really critically important to success, especially for smaller nonprofits.

Courtney: Like we were talking about earlier, especially for the smaller nonprofits that depend on community that depend on those relationships that depend on partnerships. Really important.

Tasha: Well, I mean, I’m about to lead into the discussion of you being an amazing Hive member and then you came in hot cause you’re incredible.

Tasha: But in so many ways, like that’s very much, I can’t be everywhere. I knew that right from day one, as much as I want to be in conversation with all, it’s almost 1700 people. I would love that. That was never possible. I could never scale that. And I think that’s, what’s important about community often too, is that.

Tasha: You know, there’s a concern, I believe in nonprofits that, you know, of keeping some reins on it. And I don’t mean that you can’t have guidelines or like, Hey, this is how we interact with each other. If you keep all of the like communications only held within your nonprofit, which is why I dispersed it out to the rest of you lovely humans who make the community real, because I can’t scale to 1700 people.

Tasha: I, it’s never going to happen, but you’re all out there cheerleading each other on sending, you know, A message of what community looks like for the nonprofit hive without me having to be the only person out there. Right. And the only person out there cheerleading it on. So, but nonprofit hive, you just jumped in Courtney or Gemma and I saw your name everywhere and I was like, who is this?

Tasha: This is amazing.

Courtney: What

Tasha: have you gotten out of being a member of the nonprofit hive in the last couple of months?

Courtney: I mean, at a high level, I’ve gotten to talk to folks in Canada, India, the United States in grant writing and nonprofit leadership and fundraising. I’ve gotten to learn from and like the lived experiences of people literally all over the world with different objectives and different goals for being a member of the community.

Courtney: And you know what else I’ve gotten that I think is almost more impactful. And this goes beyond. The nonprofit hive, like I’ve obviously gotten wonderful conversations. I’ve gotten to meet people that I might not have met otherwise, which is fantastic, but it’s almost given me, and I was talking about this earlier, early on in my career, this permission to be bold.

Courtney: It’s almost given me that permission across other LinkedIn. And we were talking about this before we got on.

Tasha: Yeah.

Courtney: Whoa. Oh, Hey, I love that idea. Can we hop on a call? And like, I didn’t do that as much before the nonprofit hive. So now I find myself, if I’m scrolling LinkedIn and I see something trending, go, wow, I love that idea.

Courtney: And it’s different than how I think about it. Can I understand more? Can I learn more? I want to know more from your experience. And I think that for me is the real power of beyond the community. hive. I love I’m already looking forward to my conversation this Thursday. And I’ve stayed connected to the people that I’ve had the conversations with.

Courtney: And that’s been powerful. And beyond that, I think, and to our point earlier in this conversation, even it’s facilitated. almost for me to actively seek more relationships like that in social media, which I think is probably lacking these days, right? Like it, it stopped the scroll and really allowed me to leverage LinkedIn as a platform for learning and connection.

Courtney: That I probably didn’t do before. I was like, wow, this is really cool. This is a whole community full of folks that are sharing ideas and experiences and relationships. And this is awesome. And let me take the learnings from this community and do more of that. That’s been really awesome.

Tasha: That’s wonderful.

Tasha: I love that. And I think you’ve highlighted on something that I think the nonprofit world. Social impact world is really bad about is that we’re often not marketing internally to ourselves. We’re not sharing our own stories to each other. We’re constantly trying to externalize to the rest of the world to justify our work, to potentially encourage donations, volunteers, all of those things, which is wonderful.

Tasha: And that should be part of the relationship building we were discussing. But I do think we get something unique from talking to peers who have been in the work who get it. Because it can often feel that, you know, what do I do in my work? How does, how do I, as a fundraiser in the U S differ from potentially a fundraiser in India, and there’ll be those differences, but there’s also something core to the people who love this work and surrounding yourself with those people who on days when the general public that are not nonprofit.

Tasha: Don’t think your messaging is cool. Another person, nonprofits, right? Like your leaders. And I think they got out of cheerleading for each other. And that’s also, I think. Important on the days when it’s hard having that other

Courtney: really good that the empathy that exists. You know, from the standpoint of Oh, yeah, I went through that situation.

Courtney: And I remember how that felt. Here’s what I did. I don’t know if that will be helpful. And then you go, Oh, my gosh, how did I never? Think of it like that, like this opportunity in the nonprofit hive, especially now with webinars and the LinkedIn lives, like there’s such an opportunity for that all the time that you don’t get just walking around your neighborhood.

Courtney: I don’t think anyone else in my neighborhood is in a not is in the nonprofit sector. So, you know, if I’m walking around talking to my neighbors, like we’re talking about the weather or the football game or whatever, we’re not going to empathize with each other on these pressing societal issues or organizational issues.

Courtney: And I think that’s something really unique.

Tasha: Absolutely. I totally agree. So how can people get in touch with you, follow you, you have a brand new role as well, Courtney, since I first started connecting with you on LinkedIn brand new organization you’re supporting, tell us a little bit more about how people can stay connected with you.

Courtney: Yeah. So a few different ways. I think one, the best way and the place where I’m most active send me a message on LinkedIn. I’m really good about responding to those and I’m almost always going to respond with like, let’s get on a call and chat email all my phone number even is on my LinkedIn.

Courtney: So if people want to text me and check out my LinkedIn profile has my cell phone number as my personal email actually does not have my work email. yet. But that’s the best way. And I love a good conversation. This is super fun for me. And I’m doing more and more of it. And right now I’m in a really important space in mental health and addiction recovery.

Courtney: Advocacy and fundraising and that particular challenge, which is deeply personal to me. So if folks are out there doing similar work, I’d love to kind of coalesce around that and understand what’s going on in other areas of the world. But yeah, I would say my LinkedIn profile has become the easiest way for people to connect with me.

Courtney: I’m better at that most of the time than I am. My text messages. So I

Tasha: love that. I love, I think it’s fantastic and such a great guest and this was delightful. Thank you so much for doing this with me and thanks for all of your support. It’s been, it’s really been just special for me because, you know, I had my initial.

Tasha: Core friends believers who were like, oh, yeah, I’ll do this just because Tasha’s doing it But there’s something special as I start to connect with people who? I don’t even know all the time how everyone found it, but they’re in and they just bring something so special to the community. So

Courtney: Yeah, and thanks for having me and know that like what you do is needed It wouldn’t be so special if it wasn’t needed if people weren’t if people weren’t really in need of the connection people were not in need of relationships and the conversations It wouldn’t be so special.

Courtney: So you’re out there Meeting that need all the time. And so thank you for what you do, because it gives me the opportunity to connect with people and to have those conversations and to feel those connections. And it’s really special. So thanks. Awesome.

Tasha: All right. This is fantastic. You are so good.