How Maia Iva Is Transforming Animal Welfare in Ukraine Through Strategic Nonprofit Action

Tasha: [00:00:00] Can you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your nonprofit origin story?

Maia: Hi, Tasha. I’m Maia. My nonprofit story is actually, I think longer than I. Consciously understand it because I started donating to nonprofits when I was 11. It was animals who always were my passion animal rights. My nonprofit origin way goes way back when I was a little girl and I collected some, I don’t know, $30 for my birthday back in Ukraine.

My parents were not really encouraging that. They asked me if I wanted to buy something for myself, but I was just giving all this money to the shelters in Kiev region. Right now I actually run an animal rights nonprofit, a small one. When, Russia invaded Ukraine, when Russia started the full scale invasion, we understood that we have to act really fast, that animals will be.

So deeply affected by war. And at first, we, very [00:01:00] quickly, within two months, we created 70 animals. We rehomed them in Europe. Our organization is like a gut parent to, so many animals. But then we actually shifted to delivering bad food and supplies for stray animals of Ukraine. So we understood that by feeding the animals that unfortunately do not have a chance to find a home in Europe, we can save more lives, we can feed more animals.

And so we have already fed over a hundred thousand animals. That’s amazing. Mostly in the most dangerous regions at the front lines, those who. Just remain with maybe one caretaker and like it might be a house full of 7,000 animals and they’re under care of these civilian volunteers who have never done animal rights animal shelters before.

And we try to support them as much as possible. So yeah, this has been our journey. And [00:02:00] also professionally, I have been working with nonprofits for over and. Eight years we have been running, creative and tech studio and I’ve also been consulting nonprofits on all things marketing, social media, corporate partnerships, like all things fun, I would say.

Tasha: So you’re just living and breathing nonprofit in your like day job and at all hours.

Maia: Exactly. And I couldn’t be more happy about it.

Tasha: I love that. So how big is the team? Like how many people are you working with? Is it mostly volunteers with your nonprofit? How does that work?

I’m so curious. ’cause those are huge numbers in that amount of time.

Maia: Not huge enough, we’re more ambitious than that, but, yeah, we have so far delivered just 15 tons of pet food. But we now have, for this year we have 35 more pending. Already secured on their way to Ukraine. So I’m quite happy about this year.

Amazing. We’re a small team actually, and it’s funny because [00:03:00] we didn’t know each other before, we just kinda assembled like mad each other and all. We’re all, female and non-binary folks with immigrant backgrounds. So like the underdogs coming together to build something meaningful.

We’re all volunteers. We all have full-time jobs, but I think like assembling such a team, like you would never be able to do it on purpose. We have an award-winning cinematographer in our team who is just like. Agreeing to shoot some doggs. She shoots some huge feature films that are presented at festivals and now she has been with us since the beginning and she’s shooting just some Doggs,

I think it’s really beautiful. Tim building is something , so magical. If you’re intentional about who you’re looking for, you’ll find the best people.

Tasha: That’s incredible. I love it. I love it so much. What’s been your favorite part? I mean, been [00:04:00] working with nonprofits and so , there’s that part, but, you know, starting your own nonprofit.

What’s your favorite part then?

Maia: We had a marketing campaign with a like-minded, corporate partner , and. This campaign resulted in our biggest inkind donation ever. It was 32 tons of pet food going to Ukraine. This is an insane amount. It’ll feed, I think 250,000 animals it’ll feed. That’s crazy.

Tasha: That’s amazing.

Maia: Yeah. It’s like insane , to comprehend.

But the best part about this partnership is that I’ve been fun girling with over this brand for so long. This is a vegan pet food brand, and I’m vegan. So it’s, just something that’s I really wanted to do. I was thinking for so long, how do we approach them?

Do we find, someone who knows them or something? And I ended up just shooting a cold email to the founder. She replied within 10 minutes. And we have built a partnership on top of that. So that’s why I’m [00:05:00] always advocating for cold emailing, the mission aligned companies, because you never know, who’s gonna be your next partner and unless you shoot them an email, you just kind of have to wait until they learned about you organically.

And this has been so effective, this campaign has been so effective for both us and them. It’s so funny, I was looking at this cold email that I, that I sent her. It sounds like me in a way that it’s like ultra exciting, you know? And I didn’t try to sound like,, you know, this professional nonprofit leader something.

But what I did, I clearly highlighted the benefits that this partnership could bring both to us and to them. And. These are the results that we achieved. Well, we overachieved our results. Whenever I’m speaking to a nonprofit who is like, I wish we had this, huge law firm donating to us, or this huge, I don’t know, like Disney donating to [00:06:00] us.

But the question is did you ask them? Yeah. Do you think that you’re, if you’re so aligned. You just have to shoot this email.

Tasha: I couldn’t agree more. I think alignment is so important. Right? And when we’re talking about corporate partnerships or brand sponsorships or any of those things, , who do you see out there that you admire?

Because probably if you admire them, your values are probably very similar, right? If it resonates with you and you watch it and you love it, yeah. Yeah. And sometimes those relationships happen very fast. But I would say, oftentimes the relationships slowly ramp up because they start paying attention to you.

What are they doing? What are you doing as your nonprofit? Exactly. And the world might take, it might take a year, but I think those are great conversations to just start. Start the introduction. Be yourself, especially if you have a founder. Like a founder with your personality and the passion and the drive.

No, you have to be yourself, because if you [00:07:00] were, if you keep it all polished. Then they’re not getting a real version of what they’re actually signing up for even. Exactly.

Maia: Also kind of this win-win situation is, we got a few celebrity endorsements for our tiny little nonprofit, huge celebrities.

The thing is that like when I was approaching them, it felt like, , they might say no because we’re a small nonprofit and what is it for them, right? Like there is nothing. We’re just trying , to tap into their audience. But in the end, when we, launched these collaborations, we had Chilly Gonzales, XIU XIU, , we had, Playboy Superstar, who are all so incredible humans, and they really care about our mission.

We actually had, because it was like a collaboration post on Instagram, so it was in their feed and in our feed. Of course, we had reached like tens of thousands of people who never knew we existed, but what it was for them, [00:08:00] they also received comments like, wow, it’s so nice of you to support animals.

Or someone said I didn’t know that you’re vegan. Oh my God, now I love you even more. So it’s always a win-win situation. Even when you think that, I’m small, they’re huge, so they will say no, or it makes no sense for them to endorse us, but you never know, like you can build it to be a win-win situation, like reputation building or , this, Playboy model.

She actually came out as vegan after we posted this collaboration because she was giving us like a little interview. And yeah, so, it’s never about, it should never be about like just asking for money. It should be about like. How can we align in a way that we support each other’s mission?

We drive, let’s say revenue for a corporate partner. We drive PR opportunities, we drive, some great milestones for their impact reports, and they, help us achieve our mission. They help [00:09:00] us deliver the goods, they help us help the people, or whatever the mission might be.

Tasha: Yeah, I think marketing is one of the places that I would say when they talk about nonprofit being run, like for-profit marketing is a good spot to to start, right? Because, yep. There’s so much about for-profit marketing. The same rules apply to nonprofits. Exactly right. You have a smaller budget, you may not be able to do as much ads and all of those pieces, but the same way that we are all convinced.

We need another pair of yoga leggings. Well, it does work. Like we, those same messages, the same like things that jump out to us when we’re purch our purchasing power, like it does apply to the nonprofit, right? It’s just that, and like you noted, there’s lots of great people who have some influence potentially locally, but potentially internationally who are going to look at your mission and go.

This is amazing. I want to align with what they’re doing and [00:10:00] Exactly. It takes work. It takes work to find them. But pretty cool to have that opportunity. I love it.

Maia: , I think if you ask a nonprofit, like who would be your go-to partner and let’s say it’s. Maybe, a nonprofit that provides educational resources or workshop or something, they will say, you know, Disney, Netflix. And , they already have this list of Dream, dream partners, right? You just have to write it down and then go to, direct tools where you can search for emails.

Or the specific person that you’re, looking into, and it’s legal to use these tools. Like again, for profit, uses it all the time. Like how many emails you get from, e-bike seller. I don’t know why they think I bike. I didn’t bike. . But they found my email somewhere. So I think it’s not a question of even like. At least for the first maybe like a hundred partners to reach out to. It’s not a question of thinking for a week with a team who should we approach? But I think , on top of your head, you already have so many ideal, [00:11:00] partners who you’re looking up to be it, people as celebrities or thought leaders, but also corporation, also companies.

Tasha: I love that. That’s fantastic. And challenges that you’ve found since you started your own nonprofit, what would you say are some of, the biggest challenges?

Maia: I think for us it was, how do we speak in a way that. We speak to many of our donor personas, we have so many different people who support us and they’re all quite different.

We don’t have it. That’s our, donor persona is in their thirties. They live here, they speak this language. We actually developed, it was like this at the beginning when understood that we have to speak English versus maybe Ukrainian or German or another language.

Tasha: Yeah.

Maia: But we had it very generalized, who is our supporter.

But then we started to break down the most prominent personas that [00:12:00] we had into different personas because someone who like. For example, we went live on a techno radio in Berlin. It was really fun. It was really weird and , a lot of like DJs and electronic music communities started supporting us and like they’re a different donor persona type then.

Let’s say a corporate partner who we had since we began. So I think the most challenging thing for us was to find this tone of voice that we sound like ourselves, we sound like our team, but also that we speak to all these different types of people. So someone is more motivated by emotional stories, but someone may be easily triggered by those emotional stories, especially for us dealing with war realities.

We try to keep our content very hopeful. We never want to make people feel hopeless [00:13:00] about, animal homelessness in Ukraine because it is quite hopeless, but we can fix it a little bit, step by step. And so I think it was a lot of experiments when we posted something or we published something that was.

Unfortunately triggering to so many people and they felt devastated. So we removed that and we understood that this is not our, this is not gonna stay in our guideline. We’ll not pause these stories. They can read, they can see those stories in like mass media because they’re so huge and so tragic and so bad and everything.

But for us it’s always trying to find this positive note and this. Hopeful feeling that, look, you can feed so many animals, you can change so many lives. You can, ever create so many animals. And at some point we also understood that many of our supporters, they, for themselves, they’re trying [00:14:00] to tie our mission to how we also help humans by helping animals.

And we started to position ourselves this way that. And it’s true that by helping, animal shelters who are mostly run by women, we also help these women and we empower these women that there will always be support from Europe, from the us, from Canada, from across the globe. . And it works so well.

We did an interview with an owner one of the shelters that we worked with. She’s in her thirties. She’s a new mom and she runs the shelter with 700 animals and crazy number , it’s a super woman. I dunno how many hours a day she has. But we decided to feature her as a person.

This is the shelter, this is what help they need from us, but as a person and so many supporters of ours actually fell in love with her and started donating to her [00:15:00] directly, which is essentially our goal to be this bridge between, English speaking world and Ukraine’s incredible charities, incredible animal rights charities.

So I think, we achieve this goal, at least with this shelter. So yeah, I think , it’s always a challenge to come back to analyze the supporters. You already have the supporters that you want to get, because those might be different people oftentimes and kinda get back to realigning how you show up in the world.

Tasha: Well, and I know you and I had connected. Initially over our shared marketing background. And oftentimes these are the skills that small nonprofits don’t have, right? They don’t have the marketing background to be able to tell what is working, what isn’t working, what you know you could be doing next.

I know it’s been super advantageous for me as a startup to have a marketing background. As much as [00:16:00] the tech has been important, obviously the tech is how we move the nonprofit head forward. The marketing and the people behind it, and who is part of this community has been so much more powerful and people will.

Forgive me for sometimes, , the tech not being perfect and all of that stuff because the marketing is really good. . Exactly. I think it does make a difference, but it’s something a lot of nonprofits struggle to invest in.

Maia: Yeah. , I think like for many people, in the sector, because we’re also overworked, overwhelmed, the teams are small, compared to not even corporations, but the normal. Local business, the teams are small in this sector. But I think the question of marketing is that each task, let’s say you want to , get more followers in social media, or you want to get more leads via SEO, you want to get more donors via SEO. Now we have to think about, AI optimization so that JGPT recommends your nonprofit.

I think it’s a question of that each [00:17:00] task sounds so daunting and so big, but it’s a question of turning this like huge task of let’s we wanna grow on social media into some small baby steps that you can easily take and have the team on align on. So you don’t have to analyze every follower that starts following you, but.

If your goal is to get more followers, you have to get back to that, maybe like once a month to, see the Instagram insights or Facebook or LinkedIn to get a bigger picture and also new ideas. So I think it’s a question of it sounds so complex. How do I learn marketing? You know yourself.

How many branches there, are that so much. That’s make this whole picture either work or not. But I think it’s a life science. Like you just have to start with something.

Tasha: Yeah. No, it’s fantastic. I love this. And [00:18:00] so you’ve been a Hive member. I think, I’m not sure what the length of time is, but I know you’ve done like somewhere around 15 I think calls since you started.

So you’ve jumped right in, which I love. And we, I think we have four members in Germany. I actually don’t know if we have anyone who’s directly living in the Ukraine right now. But , just love to have this international. Outlook and influence , on the hive. What have you gotten out of being a member of the nonprofit Hive?

Maia: I just literally, before recording this, I had a call with a Hive member outside, it’s Monday, right? It’s not the nonprofit Hive. Yeah. France actually, and I should say, I have been actively, quite actively searching for a nonprofit community. And I’ve been a member of so many inactive Slack channels or Facebook groups or LinkedIn groups.

And then at some point I was just hopeless. I thought there is no active nonprofit community, which [00:19:00] is sad, you know? But then I asked on Reddit and they recommended joining Nonprofit Hive, and they said this is the one, this is the one that you’re looking for. But , the challenge was, I’m an introvert.

Believe it or not. That’s

Tasha: so funny. Yeah.

Maia: It was such a big step for me. I remember I had the website tab open on my phone for maybe two weeks before I registered because, it felt like, such a big dedication for a person who is not, extroverted you know, commits to having this weekly, or whatever your tempo is, chats with.

People who you don’t know. But , from the first chat it was clear that we have something in common, we’re in the sector. I think, what it gives me so much fresh perspective and every call that I have, I live with my worldview being a little bit wider than it was before the call,?

Either it’s a new cause that I learned about or it’s a new [00:20:00] geographical. Uniqueness or cultural context that I learned about. And it just makes my, leading my nonprofit even a little bit easier because I can always ask, , someone about the challenge that I’m facing and there is a good chance that they have faced this before and they solved this issue before.

So I think like the sector is so unique that. We need our own community. You cannot really talk to, , head of partnerships of Netflix about your challenges.

Tasha: It’s so different. Right. And part of my dream and hope for the future is that we’re able to go, oh, here’s where the nonprofit marketers like that.

There’ll be different spaces for different types. Yep.

Maia: Of

Tasha: people within the sector. But if you want to meet anyone in the sector, anywhere in the world, there’ll be this, you know, the nonprofit have exists to fill that need. Yep. But no, it’s been lovely. And, I love the just international [00:21:00] perspective,, that’s coming in because.

Too often the North Americans put their heads down and believe we’re the center of the universe and we’re not, and there’s so much we can learn from everyone else about how a nonprofit could be done differently. And we need that right now. . We need all brains on solving nonprofits.

Yeah.

Maia: Even getting another perspective on things like it works a, b, C for you, but it works X, y, z, in another region. And then you can kinda. It still will work the same for you and the same for them. But now you have a wider perspective on things that , I’m privileged to have it like this, or that person is privileged to have it like this.

And then you’re like getting back to, your work, appreciating your work more and more because you learn how different it is , for everyone, you know?

Tasha: Yeah, I think that’s great. So. This has been amazing. Two things. One, I would like you to quickly mention a cool startup that you are also involved in.

’cause we’ve connected [00:22:00] over, being female star startup founders in the tech space, like marketers. So tell me a little bit about, we, I wanna hear a bit more to introduce that. Yeah,

Maia: The whole journey I have with the nonprofit sector and the challenges that I had, running my nonprofit and consulting nonprofits, I started building a tool for my nonprofit organization that would help me

this challenge that I mentioned, talking to different donor personas and trying to keep a consistent tone of voice and be effective in fundraising. So now me and my co-founder, we have closed our studio and we are building a tool and AI power tool that helps nonprofit organizations, speak to their donors more effectively.

Be it via social media or, annual reports website. So it’s a communication tool, but we also take a deep dive at social media specifically because I believe it’s a big vehicle that is not as [00:23:00] difficult as it can seem like. . And I think that there is a huge potential in social media for nonprofits because, there are millions of people out there scrolling daily and it’s a question of do you want them to.

See you or not. , So we’re building this tool that will help nonprofit organizations not only communicate more efficiently, but also manage their social media. I. Easier. But we are ambitious. We want to build the best, eh, powered nonprofit growth tool. We’ll see how it goes.

Tasha: I love ambitious people, particularly in the nonprofit space, and obviously you have such a great inside track running your own nonprofit to know, how challenging the social media part can be.

Okay. How can people, what’s the best way for people to get in touch with you, follow along with your nonprofits,, learn more about the tool that you’re building?

Maia: I love LinkedIn and I’m a big advocate for LinkedIn for nonprofits because I think also there is so much untapped potential on LinkedIn, , that [00:24:00] nonprofits can, leverage.

Tasha: This is the name and I’ll put in the show notes, links to all of the different places that people can find you. But thank you so much for doing this with me. Thank you so much.

Lovely to meet you. And I think every time that I get talking with others in the sector, I learn about, like you said, it’s a new nonprofit, it’s a new outlook.

It’s giving me a more,, full view of what nonprofit looks like around the world. And I, I feel. Like I’m constantly learning, which is great. Right. We need to keep doing. Exactly.

Maia: It’s always great talking to

Tasha: Thank you.

Maia: Thank you so much.