Reimagining Nonprofit Leadership: Sonya Perez-Lauterbach’s Approach to Sustainable Impact

Tasha: So we’re going to start out, uh, good morning.

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

Sonya: Hi. I’m so happy to be here. I’m Sonia and I am a participant member of the hive, been loving it. And my nonprofit history, I say I’m a lifelong idealist as most nonprofiteers are they.

Sonya: Um, want to be a part of more love, more justice, more beauty in the world in so many different ways.

Sonya: And, um, I guess, um,

Sonya: officially I started in college working. Um, my work study job was with a refugee organization and, um, got to help people with job interview, like prepping for job interviews. So it was kind of coaching back even way back then.

Tasha: That’s amazing. Yeah.

Sonya: Yeah, so I had studied business and economics, but I, I knew that I wanted to use that in a social, in a way of that social impact. So, um, was always drawn to organizations that had a holistic approach to,

Sonya: um, To

Sonya: their work as far as economic development and empowerment of people. So that led me to microfinance, um, worked at an, uh, midsize organization, kind of wore all the hats from prospect researcher at events and program development.

Sonya: And, um, I say,

Sonya: I got my fundraising chops there, but with any organization that’s run by humans. Created by humans, there’s challenges.

Tasha: Yeah.

Sonya: And there was a lot of, um, change and tension just as humans are. And I, um, actually had an intern that was studying learning and organizational change, um, for her master’s program.

Sonya: I was like, there’s a better way to do this, do all of this change and manage teams.

Sonya: And so, um,

Sonya: That led me to that program where I learned about executive coaching and, um, was so jealous for all of my nonprofit professional friends who, We’re in the most complex environments. We’ve got this balance of mission and fundraising and programs.

Sonya: And it’s not just about the bottom line. It never was. And yet decision making is so challenging. And I learned so many different tools and the way that coaching can help executives that, um, and my colleagues at this program were for a, from AMX and Facebook and all learning all of these ways that leaders and for profit we’re giving.

Sonya: this help, I wanted to bring that back to nonprofits. So I’ve worked inside as a consultant and, um, on boards and seen the complexity and, um, just have a heart for helping organizations be more effective and human centered using tools and, um, helping the actual organization, not just the mission, but the people working in the organization to feel whole and valued and invested in so that they could be strong leaders.

Tasha: I love that. That’s such a great, I, this conversation is so big and I know we’ll only talk, like touch on a little bit, but just, I’m glad that that’s starting to be recognized in the space

Tasha: because, you know, it, it feels very new. It shouldn’t, I mean, for profit has been kind of moving in this direction of, of, you know, for a while, but it just feels like nonprofit in typical fashion is 10 to 15 years behind, uh, whatever what’s happening in other places.

Tasha: So this is amazing.

Tasha: And favorite part of. Nonprofit work and I use that really broadly because you’ve been in house and doing this job. So it may cross over both But what do you love about this sector and working here?

Sonya: Yeah, I mean

Sonya: The way that I define leadership, so I’m, I have my own practice of leadership coaching.

Sonya: The way that I define leader is people who see something that needs to be addressed and then they take action to do that and they bring people along. And that is nonprofit people. They see a need in their community, in the world, and they’re taking action. And so, um, I love working with these motivated, um, individuals, I think nonprofits.

Sonya: People, despite some of the like, maybe negative stereotypes and even like, okay, so we’re behind on certain things like some of some of those tropes. Yeah. We do imagine a different world.

Tasha: Agreed.

Sonya: And so I think we can use that imagination to also imagine a different way of being leaders. And like, we don’t have to take everything from the private sector and try to fit it into what we’re doing.

Sonya: I think it’s time for us to really imagine leadership, organizational development, organizational compensation in different ways, because we are imaginative people and want to make things better, not just for that specific cause of the organization, but that could, we can bring that in house and re imagine how we do our work.

Sonya: Agreed. I

Tasha: agree. If we’re revolution, like if there’s nonprofit is revolutionizing, A lot of different parts of human life and how we, um, act as a society. It’s almost like, well, why wouldn’t we do that for our own way? Yeah. I’m like, why didn’t we do that for our own people? What could it look like? Oh, that’s amazing.

Tasha: And challenges of the work, you know,

Tasha: as a coach, you know, what do you see as some of the biggest challenges in the nonprofit sector?

Sonya: Yeah, I think. We have a lot of work. There is, like, you know, I am about gratitude and positivity, and so, like, that is a part of my mindset, but I’m not a Pollyanna around, like, the reality is that there are structures, and there are ways that, um, and there are things that we’re working against.

Sonya: Um, That are real challenges,

Sonya: you know, um,

Sonya: funding is down, need is up. Like that’s just the reality of the situation. And so I see a lot of leaders committed to the mission and the list, the to do list is always so long. Right. And so it’s like the immediate, like, how do we. How do we pay payroll? How do we make sure that this stays afloat?

Sonya: And it’s like, so focused on the immediate that we, um, it’s hard to dream. Yeah. We lose the bigger picture, right? Like we’re running at a sprint pace. And it’s a marathon. Yeah. And we’re like, next week it’s going to slow down in two weeks. It’s going to slow down. And then every, and I remember being at the organization, it’s like, we always had so many projects, so many things going on.

Sonya: It’s like in two weeks, it’s going to slow down. So like you look out at your calendar and then two weeks comes and it didn’t slow down.

Tasha: Yeah.

Sonya: And then it keeps going and it keeps going. And so, and it’s not that the work, like the work will always be there. And it’s like, how do we, um, change how we’re thinking about our work, change how we feel about the urgency.

Sonya: I think, um, last week I was talking to someone, it was like busy, but gets busy. It’s like, there’s always more to do. And so, um, acknowledging the big workload is important, but also saying, how do I want to feel? When I engage in my work and um, I’m a big nerd, love the neuroscience behind coaching and evidence based coaching around how our brain works.

Sonya: Like when we’re in that urgent fear mode. Like, those are the hormones, those are the chemicals that are going through our brain. We’re not accessing our most creative thoughts. Our most strategic thoughts. And so how do we, this is where I love the body part, how do we care for our nervous system? So that we can say, okay, yeah, there’s all this stuff to do.

Sonya: But I’m safe in this moment. How do I access those best thoughts rather than just stay on that train and go, go, go, go, go. So that I know a lot of people are struggling with feeling on that train. Like I don’t even know how to get off the train.

Tasha: Absolutely. Absolutely. Because I think there’s like this idea that if we get off the train, we have to set like to get off that feeling.

Tasha: We have to set something down, right? And maybe that is what the reality is. I, I love how you’re framing this because instead it’s changing how we’re looking at the work, because maybe the work is always going to be big. It’s just, you know, everyone in nonprofit marketing, who I have many friends in nonprofit marketing is always going, there’s always some new platform.

Tasha: There’s always, we should be doing more. We should always be, we should be engaging more here, engaging more here, engaging more here. Sometimes that’s tied to fundraising. There’s a clear plan. Sometimes you’re just told to like, do more, more communication, figure out this. And that can be really overwhelming because it feels very time sensitive.

Tasha: It’s not, um, you know, Social media is so reactionary that it can feel very up here all the time when you’re, you’re in that work, but I don’t know. I just, I struggle sometimes to even myself when we were talking about before we got on this, like, how do you. Move beyond those feelings of overwhelm to access your creativity.

Tasha: And I know what my creativity suffers sometimes because of the amount of work, right? Because I’m very much, Oh my goodness, the list is enormous. How do I tackle this on a regular basis?

Sonya: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I was just working with my coach the other day and saying the same, saying the same thing of like, there are so many different ways of building a business, social media, or building a community and this platform and that platform and how you show up.

Sonya: And, um,

Sonya: she was like, let’s define specifically, like make a business decision. And then stick with it because, and like, what does that actually look like? Cause our brain can always tell us there needs to be more. Yeah.

Tasha: And

Sonya: in my marketing plan, I have a line, I will not do it all.

Tasha: I love that. I love that. I, I am very much right now, my biggest thing, and I had the word intentionality for the first half of the year and it served me well.

Tasha: And now it’s moved to stability. I’m just like, okay, so you built and you did intentional building and all of these great things are coming your way. But now what about stability? Because now you have to figure out a way to, you know, stabilize yourself so that I can go rock climbing on a Tuesday when I feel like it.

Tasha: Right. And I think that’s the same thing that too often things feel so shaky and nonprofit. You’re preparing for something bad to happen and stabilizing. I don’t, it doesn’t seem like, or every time the stabilizing kind of happens, nonprofits are like, go higher, right? Like what’s next because we’re kind of.

Tasha: Maybe stable for a moment. I struggle with that all the time.

Sonya: Yeah, yeah. And I think that like, when we look outside, there is an urgency. I mean, right now, just the news cycle, the access to seeing what everybody else is doing.

Tasha: Yeah.

Sonya: Our, our fear brain tricks on like, should I be doing something more being aware of like, okay.

Sonya: Yeah. When I’m on social media, this is what my brain is offering me of like, maybe I should be doing these things or that thing. It’s like, how do I, this is why a practice for me of like in the morning meditation or journaling. To help me recenter to be like, it’s okay. And one phrase I give myself a lot is keep your eyes on your own mat.

Tasha: I love that. And I think

Sonya: nonprofits could do that too, because, um, there is so much out there. Like this challenge and that challenge. And I know I’m sure a ton of marketers are going to be like, yeah, they’re bored. You have one, seven bosses, right? And they all are bringing their ideas. So even if you’re not on social media, they’re all bringing these ideas.

Sonya: This is where effective leadership and support of saying like, This is what we’re choosing. We’re going to go all in here and we’re all going to put our energy and our brain and our excitement around this campaign because it’s so easy to look left and right and like, Oh, but should we be adding this thing?

Sonya: Should we be adding this thing? And then your brain goes into confusion and indecision. And you spend so much more time there than execution. And then you’re like, see, that didn’t work. And you’re like, but you weren’t act, you know, it’s, it really is directing your brain to what you decided and loving it for your people and going all in there.

Sonya: But. Our brains are complex. They get all your ideas.

Tasha: Well, and then you put, yeah, state of non profit work, state of society, and humans. And yeah, it’s a wild mix, right? For sure. So in your work in non profit, how has peer support factored into your success?

Sonya: Oh, it has been really huge. I have, um, I think it’s, I always come back to like these three human needs.

Sonya: It’s, um, safety, autonomy, and connection. And so in my like change management course, I talk about how oftentimes change really threatens those in different ways and, um, connection with other people that are in a similar industry that have a similar passion for creating good in the world that have dedicated so much of their waking hours to this.

Sonya: It’s been really fun and I love the hype to connect with people that have that shared vision. Um, connection is what creates resiliency in humans. And so, um, I think it is so incredibly important. And. That’s why I love doing the work that I work, that I do when I learned about coaching. I mean, obviously the hive wasn’t around earlier in my career, but it’s like, Oh man, how nice that would be to have someone outside of the organization being able to see and like, give you a different perspective or ask you questions about it.

Sonya: It just elevates our thinking.

Tasha: Yeah, absolutely. I had the most delightful hive chat right before we got on, uh, talking to somebody where he’s like, well, we have to really pull together our impact report before we can make an ask. I was like, I don’t know. Why is that a rule? Like who gave, who told you that?

Tasha: Right? Like I, you know, but to him, to me, I was going, you know, yes there are gonna be some donors who are gonna wanna see impact first, but I said, but you have that, like, maybe it’s not in a formal report, but like you have some ideas of the impact. Mm-Hmm. In your community. I’ve seen your Instagram, you’re putting out some cool stuff, and I just said, waiting until everything’s perfect to make an ask.

Tasha: That’s a problematic because nothing’s ever going to be perfect. Right? And what if it takes you another six months to put an impact report together? That’s a long time. And you’re actually missing out on the opportunity to build relationships, potential relationships, even if. Those people don’t become donors yet.

Tasha: It’s okay to throw it out there, right? And so, but to him, he’s going, Really? I can do that? Of course you can do that, right? Yeah, for sure. Please do that, right? And I, so I think sometimes having that moment to be able to throw ideas at someone else Talk about where you’re at and and maybe they’re going to go.

Tasha: Yeah, I think you’re on the right track here. I probably wouldn’t send an impact report where maybe you’re going to go. Oh, wait, I could actually make some big moves here before and nonprofit is so, um, You know, I know sustainability is a real challenge for most nonprofits financially, regardless of whether they’re big or small.

Tasha: And so not, um, you know, making that decision not to wait for him could be critical. And yeah, it’s, and I think we all get in our own heads when we’re the only ones making those decisions, right? Like it’s so hard when you don’t have a sounding board. to talk about those problems with

Sonya: absolutely that. Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean about elevating your thinking or just seeing something from a different angle can change everything.

Sonya: Um, yeah, you’re like, Oh, I thought this was just the way that it was. I heard it once or maybe twice. And then you have these conversations and you’re like, Oh, actually I could think about that differently, and that feels better, that feels more aligned. And, yeah, so often, we just believe what we think, because that’s what we know, and I often tell, I have a saying, like, don’t believe everything you think, and be able to question that, and in these conversations, in these chats.

Sonya: You get to get new ideas. You get to hear new thoughts.

Tasha: Yeah, it’s fantastic. And you’ve been a member since I think you were one of the waitlist people. I’d have to go back. I

Sonya: think I signed up right away. I think

Tasha: you were, I think you were just like, this is amazing. I’m all in. So I really appreciated that early support.

Tasha: Those people initially were like, yeah, I’m a believer. This is great. Um, really fueled this at the beginning. So what have you gotten out of your Hive chats today?

Sonya: Um, well, every time. I come away energized. Like, I don’t know, it’s like, the people that are attracted to this platform, um, are really great humans.

Sonya: And, um, I know that when I come in believing in them, believing in what they’re doing, we get to do the, use these mirror neurons of just, um, igniting energy and belief. And sometimes that’s just what we need is like, oh yeah, when I get to talk about the mission, And someone’s excited to hear about it. That makes me excited and it makes the work so much easier than sitting by yourself, feeling like you have.

Sonya: You’re in isolation and you’re like, I don’t know, is this impactful? Do I need to make a prettier report? And it’s like, just talking about what we do

Tasha: could

Sonya: be energizing.

Tasha: Agreed. I, I very much thought at first this was going to be everyone talking about the challenges of the work and how burnt out they were, and that would have also been okay, and I’m sure that’s still happening, but.

Tasha: Instead, that invigoration is not something that I knew was going to happen. And it was evident very early on that people were going, Oh, I feel reconnected to what I’m doing because I talked to somebody else about what they’re doing. So it’s such a funny, um, almost, it’s like a side effect I hadn’t really thought of because.

Tasha: People who work in this industry, like you noted, they’re just frigging fantastic. They’re amazing humans doing some of the coolest work I’ve learned about so many missions. I never would have, I never would have learned about them otherwise. So that’s exciting for me. And, uh, it’s nice to have people who are champions on both sides.

Tasha: I’ve heard lovely reviews of you after, well, did live at Layswell. Sonya was so great. And I was like, yeah, but they, they’re probably not a lot of people are getting access to, you know, All of this psychology and neurobiology you’re talking about. Most people are not going to have had that exposure. So that’s very cool.

Sonya: Yeah.

Tasha: Yeah.

Sonya: It’s a

Tasha: lot of

Sonya: fun.

Tasha: Perfect. Well, thank you so much. I’d love if you would leave off telling us a little bit about your work and services you offer and how people can get in touch with you.

Sonya: Yeah. So I, um, provide one on one coaching for the motivated change agents. So it’s, um, people in senior leadership, also emerging leaders, people who want to use their imagination to create better workplaces within nonprofit.

Sonya: And, um, I help them. Reconnect with joy in their work. And you were saying like so many cool missions, like actually we have access to joy in so many ways. Um, so help them reconnect with joy and bring in effective leadership skills, help them develop those and nurturing habits to take care of themselves.

Sonya: And, um, I have some masterclasses coming up this fall and a, I’m building a community of people, a place called Rejuvenation Roundtable that’s coming out where you can come and breathe and be encouraged in the work that you’re doing and knowing that you’re supported. So

Tasha: that’s amazing.

Sonya: People should reach out.

Sonya: I do free discovery calls and connect with me around. What could leadership feel like? How could we, how can we feel better? Let’s get off the burn out train and, um, feel empowered in our work because it’s so important and it’s really exciting. And, uh, that’s what I do.

Tasha: That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much, Sonya This was the pleasure. And, uh, thanks for all of your support over the last 10 months of building the hive.

Sonya: Absolutely. It’s so important to connect. And if you haven’t signed up for a, for the people listening, if you haven’t signed up, get on a chat and, uh, be encouraged, meet some cool people.

Tasha: That’s awesome.

Tasha: Thank you.