Lori Stanley: Empowering Nonprofits for Long-Lasting Impact

Tasha: Good Morning, could you please introduce yourself and tell us little bit about your nonprofit origin story? Yes.

Lori: Good morning I am Lori Stanley of th uniquely named Lori Stanley Nonprofit Consulting, and I started this consultancy business or firm after having spent over 25 plus years, yes, I’m aging myself in the nonprofit sector.

Lori: And just thinking about what I would have liked if I were in my, um, executive director or CEO leadership experience way back then. So I’ve started to focus on really bringing resources and supports to help nonprofit organizations focus on what matters. And so discovering their priorities and turning their purpose into impact, and in essence, focusing on the right things at the right time, because nonprofit organizations are overwhelmed.

Lori: They have a myriad of Stakeholder interests they need to accommodate. They have multiple priorities. They carry as an executive director or leader, the weight of, um, the organization’s sustainability impact on their shoulders. And, you know, they’re facing sticking with the tried and true, or being innovative and trying something new.

Lori: And these days trying to remain relevant and sustainable. And so a big part of the outcomes I’m looking to support and. Working with nonprofit organizations is exactly that. How do you stay relevant in amongst all the new realities and the forever changing landscape, and how do you build that sustainability?

Lori: So what it all boils down to is a lot of digging deep and looking at their structures, organizational reviews, developing strategy, most often strategic planning, but it could also be. Strategies around, um, leadership, sustainability, succession planning these days, how do we keep staff, how do we keep staff?

Lori: Right. So there’s strategies within the strategies. And again, just being able to give nonprofits resources and tools and skills, and, you know, they’re exhausted and they need, you know, Just done for me, you know, lots of ideas, lots of programs and services. Never enough time. As a consultant, that’s what I like to do is let me carry some of that weight.

Lori: And so I not only help with the theory, the planning, but I also do the execution, help them with sort of that practical component. Like what does it look like in, in action? What are the steps? What does success look like, et cetera, et cetera. Super fun.

Tasha: I love that a lot because I think there’s.

Tasha: The reality is I know so many organizations where a strategic plan is created and it’s like, okay, but how are we going to do this? It’s all great to have a strategic plan, but the who, and like, you noted, things are changing so quickly. And nonprofits, I, you know, I’ve seen so many challenges with change management of any kind, because when we’re tapped out, we’re exhausted.

Tasha: We don’t change very smoothly, right? Like there’s a natural resistance to going, I just need to stabilize myself a little bit right now. Sometimes we’re contracting instead of expanding and we almost need brain space or help to expand, right? We can’t, we can’t do it without one of those two things.

Lori: Those are really wise words and thoughts, and I often say change is personal, and change is emotional, and that’s an important part of any change initiative, whether it’s outside of strategic planning, but strategy in and of itself is a series of integrated choices about your impact. It’s about what you will do and what you won’t do, and it is a change management initiative.

Lori: In working with nonprofits, we talk a lot about how’s this going to land with your people who needs, who has an influence in investment and how do you want to involve them and particularly for direct service staff who really are delivering on a lot of that strategy. Do they know what their role is?

Lori: Are they confident in it? Do they understand it? How have you communicated it? So I really appreciate what you just said about change and, um, the importance of creating any process in a way that is very people centered and very participatory.

Tasha: I love that. Okay. So Long history in nonprofit work. What’s your favorite parts of working in this sector?

Lori: We love the heart. I love the heart. We all know about the heart, the impact, but the ability to innovate, um, for me at a personal level, I love all things. Strategy, whether it’s, you know, in my personal life, parenting twins, planning that next scuba dive excursion worldwide, or helping an organization figure out we’re here, but this is where we want to go and we don’t know how to get there to me, strategies like a bit of a puzzle.

Lori: And so let’s find the pieces and figure out where they fit and put them together. Seeing nonprofits feel hopeful in a, in a world that can be daunting and overstretching and overwhelming. I always remember this one woman who we, one executive director, we, we finished their strategic planning process and.

Lori: And she was buzzing. She was following me. We cleaned everything out. We were leaving, we were going to our cars and, and she’s literally buzzing. She’s like, I feel like we should go hang out and we should do more. And her statement was, there’s a light, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. We know where we’re going.

Lori: I’ve bumped into other nonprofits who are like. I don’t know where we’re going to be next year, let alone where we’re going to be in three to five years, which is absolutely right. Ultimately why you need a strategy. So it really is about just bringing a sense of relief, helping them focus on their impact, which is so much about what they are about.

Lori: Um, and just being supportive.

Tasha: Absolutely. And challenges, whether they were challenges you’ve experienced while still in house or challenges that you’re seeing now or continuing to see just throughout the sector.

Lori: One of the, so impact and, and sustainability are always, you know, no matter what’s happening in the reality of the nonprofit sector are always on their minds and, and key. Um, agenda items or initiatives these days. What I see is some real different perspectives around what sustainability looks like, particularly from a financial lens.

Lori: So there’s some hard lines that are being drawn by the government. I just spoke with someone the other day and having been in the sector for years, you know, the, the ministry would say like, that’s it, that’s all. And then when you got to the end of the year, you would do your plea. And they’d always most times find and give you some additional support, um, and funding.

Lori: They are saying no more, that’s not happening. And outside of that, I, I just had a conversation probably a couple of months ago with a non profit leader and they talked about the need to do advocacy with the government and whatnot. And I’m like, a hundred percent keep doing that, but let’s go back 10, years.

Lori: How much has the government come through and changed up what it is that they do? How confident do you feel to rely upon them? So, non profits are recognizing the need to diversify. The need to have different kinds of, um, revenue coming in. Streams of financial, um, support is the word that I’m thinking of right now.

Lori: But just ways to generate more money. So, social enterprise. is top of mind coming together and collaborating in different ways. I, um, guided one, a set of four nonprofit organizations in the Toronto area to come together around how they delivered financial empowerment services, which is a poverty reduction strategy.

Lori: So I see nonprofits, um, getting innovative what would it mean if we come together, and even if they’re not already there, it’s something that I think the field needs to start to think a little bit more about, that, you know, there’s so many There’s some redundance happening.

Lori: Each nonprofit has a certain level of uniqueness and differentiation. And just how do you monopolize on that? Like looking at what are your assets? And I can tell you a thousand times over, nonprofits have assets that they have no idea about and nonprofits are so So humble. They need to shout out what it is that is their value add.

Lori: They need to shout out what makes them stand out and attract those resources, whether it’s great staff, whether it’s partners, whether it’s funding, whether it’s donors. So those are just some of the things top of mind about some of the challenges that exist today.

Tasha: You hit the nail on the head for sure.

Tasha: I think diversification of funds. And I think it’s just. It can feel so daunting and sometimes more when you’re like more of a legacy nonprofit, you’ve been around for a long time, either there’s lots of organizations. I know, uh, in particular when there was quite a bit of Canada in Canada, there was a lot of indigenous related funding, right?

Tasha: Like there was, that was a huge initiative. And a lot of those groups, some of them were quite young nonprofits. They seemed to recognize, well, this isn’t going to last for very long. Let’s, let’s see what the other options are. Had a few that I talked to who were looking at, like, how do we start doing a fundraising program now, because we need to know that this money is not going to last and what’s the plan.

Tasha: But sometimes when a nonprofit has been around for a long time, whether they’re heavily reliant on an event once a year, or they’re heavily reliant on government funds, because that traditionally is where they received a lot of their money. I think those organizations are, even though they’ve had the time potentially to know that things might change.

Tasha: It was so steady that it was like diversification can be a little bit scary and it requires more staff and it requires a level of innovation that can be really challenging when you’re strapped all the time and you don’t have extra brain space. So it’s interesting to see Sometimes younger nonprofits that are fairly new go, well, of course we have to figure out diversification right off the bat.

Tasha: Whereas, you know, some older nonprofits are just not as prepared, right. For that level of change.

Lori: That’s a great example. And I think COVID has probably been a contributor to recognizing that need, that, um, the way that we have, forever changed the way that some services are being delivered. Um, and so I think, you know, that was a little bit of a, I’m always a fan of, you know, there’s a silver lining in everything. And so I think it, it, it shook us all in so many ways. And it is an example of why.

Lori: You know, you need to be able to adjust and adapt swiftly to those new realities. And, um, it did lead some nonprofits to, to shift. And I think, you know, it continues to stay with them. There’s always. A silver lining in every crappy situation. Gotta

Tasha: just find the, the opportunity in, in, you know, in all the mess, right?

Tasha: Like where’s what opportunity has come our way. In your career, in your current working consultancy, how does peer support kind of factor into your long term success?

Lori: As a parent, I don’t know if you remember if your kids were young enough, you remember that high school musical, we’re all in this together.

Lori: Do you remember that high school musical?

Tasha: Kids were really into high school musical a couple of years ago. It’s still on repeat in my head. Yeah, that’s

Lori: exactly repeat, repeat, repeat forever. And so when you asked me that, that’s what comes to mind. We’re all in this. together. So peer support. I mean, we’re also wired to connect, you know, we need each other.

Lori: I sit on the board of an organization that actually has a peer support model for survivors of human trafficking and, you know, the, the impact that that has for people to feel understood, um, from someone who has that same lived experience.

Lori: I’m a big fan of when my, in my work with nonprofits, looking at your collaborators, you might want to call them competitors, collaborators, but looking at, um, what others are doing and, um, looking at where you can gain.

Lori: Peer support and collaborate I wouldn’t exist without that. I wouldn’t exist with, you know, someone like yourself and what you’re doing with the Hive, with some of the other amazing consultants that I’ve met. I do partner with consultants, um, on projects. I have the consultant that does my, just on my website and does it on an ongoing basis.

Lori: I have my marketing consultant, like, um, we’re all in this together.

Tasha: Oftentimes I get talking with my techie related friends who are, you know, on the more technical side of marketing and do more, you know, I’m more of a messenger. I can do some graphics. I’m not, I’m a dabbler in like a generalist in, in all marketing. I’m like, I can do a little bit of everything, but I’m not a specialist at all.

Tasha: So it’s often in conversations with those people who, Hey, here’s their zone of brilliance. And they just, Get tech tools that do marketing stuff. Why would I go and search the whole market, which is rapidly changing as you’ve noted to find the next best marketing tool out there when I have a friend, like I have friends who that’s what they do.

Tasha: They just go, they try new things. I don’t have time to try new things, right? Like I need someone to go, this one is brilliant. I know what you do. We’ve had a great conversation in the past about marketing. You only need this level of, you don’t need this super fancy tool. You just need this. And that. That level of peer support and having those people to go to for different subjects is so valuable.

Tasha: It saves me so much time and it doesn’t feel like work because instead it feels like just a conversation with someone and I’m just like, Oh, look at us. Right. Like I like it. I come away going, Oh, that was just the most valuable, you know, chit chat. Today, because now I know where to go next.

Lori: And it becomes an exciting moment versus a frustrating moment, right?

Lori: Like if we try and navigate it on our own, and I can’t tell you, like, that’s probably one of the biggest challenges of, um, starting my own consultancy firm is the technical side of it. I can figure it out, but it might take me hours and I might have tears and I might be ready to [00:15:00] throw something or 10 minutes and talk to somebody who would do exactly what you just said.

Lori: And then I’m like, Oh yes. So I can be excited and inspired, invigorated, or, you know, on the verge of throwing things.

Tasha: Exactly. Sometimes it’s just better to avoid the throwing of things for the day, for sure. And you know, you’ve been a Hive member for a while now, I feel like you were one of the first people to join.

Tasha: You’ve done a bunch of chats with people all over the world. I love when. Because you’re active on LinkedIn. I love when your name pops up on someone I also know as a Hive member and I’m like, Oh, look at Lori’s there, like cheering them on. Like it just makes me so, so jazzed when all of that happens. So what have you gotten out of being a member of the Hive so far?

Lori: So much that I could never have anticipated or expected. So what I love about the Hive is the energy. The fact that I’m connecting worldwide. I have probably four or five different, um, nonprofit leaders from, um, Africa that I’m working with. And so, I mean, my heart gets going because just experiencing their culture and how they are as leaders, they’re so.

Lori: So grateful. They’re so full of heart. The things that they are doing are heartwarming and then at the same time, very innovative. So one particular example is, um, a young man who in his community, in Uganda. Saw the poverty and saw that people lacked food and,

Lori: he kind of did the why, why, why the five wise. And ultimately what he landed at is we don’t have food that can help impact poverty because of climate change. And so he started a nonprofit to be an environmental activist focused on climate change. talk about exciting and expiring.

Lori: , I met a woman from the States who wrote a book that I think should be the handbook that every non profit executive and organization should have in their office, social change for innovation by Leah Kral and then it’s so funny how things happen. So I meet her, didn’t know her book and kind of went, Oh.

Lori: You know, that she wrote a book and that was cool and, um, probably would have looked at it, found it, checked it out at some point. Not sure what I, you know, where that would have went. But then I meet another guy through the Hive who’s like, yeah, there’s this book. I met Leah and I’m going to do a book review on it.

Lori: And he, I want to say, I’m not going to do him justice by saying what it is that he does. So I just won’t say it. Um, but what I said to him was, well, what if you had someone who’s. In the nonprofit sector as a consultant, join you on that. And so the next thing I know we’re doing a book review on Leah’s book.

Lori: I love

Lori: that. Right. I never would have anticipated that, um, as something that would have come out of the hive, but there are some really concrete, um, and different things that are coming out of my, um, connections through the hive .

Lori: Yeah. I’m completely in there meeting other consultants, um, meeting nonprofit leaders. And the great thing about it is it helps as a consultant for me to keep connected to the realities that nonprofit leaders are facing.

Lori: I, yeah, I couldn’t agree more. And I think part of that constant opportunity and I, you know, my background’s much more marketing and I knew exactly who all three people you were talking about were, because I’ve talked to all of them and I think they’re all brilliant, right. And like, It’s neat to see the crossover and conversations over time, um, because you and I hadn’t chatted before today, which is hilarious, but I feel like I knew you because I get, I get this rounded view from when I take Hive chats to go, what’s really happening broadly in the sector and so frequently.

Lori: I think we end up in these kind of like quirky little bubbles. We’re both Canadians, both close to Toronto, you know, for the longest time, my view of a lot of nonprofit work was very limited to what was kind of happening in a very dominantly Toronto Canadian landscape. And it just kind of opened my mind to like, wow, there’s this whole world out there of nonprofit.

Lori: Yes. There’s many similarities. A lot of the challenges are very similar, but man, a lot of the innovation is very different. And what could we learn from each other if we stopped? Siloing into these, you know, just like little small pools of nonprofits. Um, and I think you even noted a little earlier in the conversation, you know, too often we look at our competitors, like, you know, other people who work in the space as only competitors.

Tasha: And I think on a local level. You know, I’m in a city that’s a tri city area. So there’s three food banks that technically all are within, I think, 30 kilometers of each other. So I think there’s a concern about collaboration in those groups because they’re going for the same dollars. Right? And, you know, how many people are going to join into a food bank?

Tasha: But isn’t it cool when you get one of those food banks, it’s an opportunity to talk to somebody in an American food bank who maybe is innovating and doing something interesting to connect with their community. And there’s no competition there. There’s only really an opportunity for collaboration and to understand and share and grow.

Tasha: And I just don’t think there was much out there that was doing it, which was partly why I started this. I was like, how are we not talking to each other across borders? Right. Like this seems crazy. And now across continents, right? Well, now it’s totally on, you know, I don’t know if we’ve talked from to anyone from the FIFALI team, Raymond Amazato just latched onto this, uh, and he was, you know, uh, you ex, uh, military in the U S.

Tasha: And he, I have him to thank for like a large part of how many African founders jumped in because he’s just that same kind of connector person. Who’s like, we should check, you know, and he, yeah, just, it’s been so cool unintended, but possibly my favorite part of what’s come out of this.

Lori: Well, and I, you know, appreciate that example that you provide of the, the three, um, uh, food banks so close to each other.

Lori: And you know what, I, I’ve been in this sector. So, I mean, I remember always being surprised by territory, why nonprofits were so territorial. And sometimes it was even, and this isn’t about the food banks, but sometimes it was, even they’re in your jurisdiction.

Lori: Like they just need help. But, um, you know, the, the food banks and, and I do understand it, the concept of scarce resources and, you know, competitors, but imagine if those three nonprofit food banks came together and said, you know, what, let’s look at all the, developed the possibilities. Um and pulled their resources and you know, together because they have that many more staff who could look for grants or potential funding pockets.

Lori: They have more time. They have more skill set and they discover beyond the 5 10 different kinds of funding pools they have to discover 30 possibilities. And you know, one food bank decides to focus on this area of service delivery while another one focuses on this area Service delivery. Right. And then all of a sudden they’re doing their own unique, but still similar things, reaching more people.

Lori: And in fact, at the end of the day, they’re less taxed because they’re, you know, focusing on a particular stream of, of support versus, you know, nonprofits are famous for trying to be all things to all, and it just leaves them. Exhausted, stretched thin, overwhelmed, um, you know, following the next, um, funding opportunity, but I mean, that’s my utopianism world, you know, where you do this part, I’ll do this part.

Lori: Like, let’s, we’re all in this together and figure it out.

Tasha: We’re all in this together. That’s going to be the name, the name of the title of the YouTube chat. We’re all in this together. Uh, this was so much fun, Lori. Thank you so much for doing this. Can you please. Ooh, uh, just how can people get in touch with you?

Tasha: Um, I always like to ask people to say that at the end of the chat.

Lori: Yes. So as you said, I’m hanging out lots on LinkedIn, love, hate, exhausted, excited LinkedIn, and you can see on my profile there, like it’s L O R I, Stanley, cause there’s so many different ways to spend it, spell it. Um, I have a website and it’s www.

Lori: nonprofitconsulting. ca. And then you’re welcome to email, email me at, uh, Lori@nonprofit consulting. And, um, if you head to my website, I’ve got some resources there you can download. Um, if you want, um, I have a couple that are just direct sends, you’re welcome to DM me on LinkedIn or email me, but I’m all about sharing resources.

Lori: And one of the things I’ve done in the Hive chat sometimes is we’ve done a Q and A and You know, the people I’m talking with, giving them resources and information right in that moment. So those are places where you can reach me.

Tasha: That’s fantastic. Thank you so much for doing this with me, Lori this is a pleasure.

Lori: Likewise.