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Lessons from a Lifetime in Nonprofits with Steve Eckman | Nonprofit411 · Nonprofit411 Podcast

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Hello and welcome to Nonprofit411, where we dive into resources and strategies that help nonprofits not just survive, but truly thrive.
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I'm Sarah Barton, your host and fundraising advocate.
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Each episode, we bring you inspiring conversations with experts in fundraising, sustainability, and best practices to equip you with the tools and confidence you need to make a real impact.
Hello.
Welcome to the Nonprofit411 podcast, where we explore resources and strategies to help your nonprofit thrive.
I'm Sarah Barton.
And today I'm excited to welcome Steve Ekman, chancellor of York university and interim president of Bethany college.
Welcome.
Welcome.
It's good to be with you.
Yes.
I'm so excited to have you on.
You and I worked together years and years ago at Ohio Valley university, and I consider you one of my Greatest mentors, you and Joy Jones, you're right there with Joy Jones.
Well, that's, that's, that's sweet.
And I'm very appreciative of being included in that company.
Yeah.
So you guys really helped shape me as a.
As a fresh, I was a fresh employee at that time.
And so I learned a lot about nonprofits and fundraising and humans and humanity and being an adult.
Well, yeah.
And you were fresh.
Yes.
I was just a little thing then.
And, and that was like the beginning of my family hood too.
So like, I was.
experiencing everything new for the first time.
So can you, before we start, I usually ask my guests, what is your favorite hobby? Well, this promotes interesting conversation.
The thing I like to do most is is, is hunting, especially elk hunting in the, in the mountains of New Mexico.
In the mountains of New Mexico.
You don't hear those words together too often.
West Virginia has way more mountains than New Mexico.
Well, except the Rockies are in New Mexico and they're, they're the real mountains.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's true.
So, well, excellent.
Well, tell us a little bit about where you're at now and what you're doing.
And then we'll talk about just kind of the changing landscape of fundraising over the years that you've been involved in nonprofits.
Okay, well, I was president of York College for almost 12 years from basically 2010 through in, into the 20s.
And after I retired from there, I Went to our our farm out in the countryside of Nebraska and was living the life and became, I became a member of something called the registry, which is, has been presidents and CEOs and CFOs.
And they they called upon me to ask me if I would look at being an interim president for Bethany college, their, their president left unexpectedly.
in December of last year.
And so they were looking for an interim to kind of hold the place together until till they had an opportunity to select a new president.
So they're in that process right now and I'm just I'm just filling in until that process is over.
I can't believe you're just filling in.
You always have a lot to contribute.
So I'm sure that they are valuing this opportunity.
So you've been in nonprofits your entire career? Before I knew you, you were in a nonprofit, but pretty much you've worked in nonprofits your entire career, right? Yes.
Either, either in higher education, faith based higher education, or for a while I was the grant officer for a for a private foundation and gave away money instead of asking for it.
Yeah.
I keep saying that's my retirement plan.
I want to give away money when I retire.
Like, so I won't, I won't stop working because I can't imagine life without work.
But.
Giving away money seems to be the easier side of the equation.
Surprisingly, it's, it's not.
And, you know, there, there are a couple of wrinkles to that.
But, you know, especially with a private foundation, they have their own interests and their own their own projects that they want to accomplish.
And a lot of times, Dealing with people who asked for money and either did not get it, or more importantly, didn't get a second grant after they got a first one, was always an interesting dynamic and one of my answers always was to the question, why didn't they give me any money? And my, my pat answer was because it's their money and they can do anything they want with it.
And I think a lot of times, I think a lot of times we get tied up in the importance of our project or our mission or whatever.
And we, we don't realize it doesn't necessarily align with all the people that we're going to, to ask for money.
I think that's such a great point though, because I do see, I've experienced that with nonprofits where they didn't get grant funding that maybe they've relied on for a long time and they don't have another plan.
In fact, it's kind of why.
I've built nonprofit 411 because I think the nonprofit sector has neglected some of the traditional funding streams and relied really heavily on grants especially smaller, small to medium, well, not so much medium, but the smaller nonprofits that are newer, they kind of entered into the realm of nonprofit work.
Because they could apply for grants then, but not realizing that fundraising is so much better.
Bigger than that.
Yeah.
And it's the sustainability, you know, it's almost what we're seeing in higher education right now, for example, is the COVID money could end up sinking a lot of schools because they got used to this influx of cash and they didn't account for life after the grants.
And so all of a sudden.
When you cut off that spigot of, of extra funding you got to find a way if you, if you expand at all, which a lot of schools did they not only kept their employees, but they hired more and started programs and everything.
Then all of a sudden, there's not sustainability to find people to fund those programs beyond.
And, you know, if people don't have the same vision you do they aren't going to be interested in continuing to pay for something, even if they helped start it up.
Yes, yes.
Well, and so you've being in higher ed and I know just because of my history in higher ed like sustainability is it's a tricky balance of a variety of things, but one of the biggest balances is.
And so it's tricky, what advice do you have to nonprofits as they, you know, newer nonprofits, especially as they're getting into the game, what would you say is your advice to them to help build a sustainable organization? Well, obviously I think the most important thing is find like minded people who you know, people, people donate money or give money for basically two reasons to save lives or to change lives.
And if you can align your mission or your, your asks with those with those items, with those purposes, you have a much better chance.
I think a lot of times what happens with the smaller nonprofits, especially as they get used to doing projects and they raise money for projects, but that's not a sustainable income stream for the long term.
You need to find people who align their, their Their mission, their goals, their desires with years.
And I think that's why, you know, if you see the, I know you, if you watch TV, you see the advertisements for St.
Jude's you, and, and you see it in, in your heartstrings are just pulled.
I mean, I, that tunnels to towers, all those things where, where it really is making a legitimate, different those.
Those organizations really have a, a, a great appeal.
If you can find an appeal that aligns with with people who want to give money.
And once again, if, if you can go out and say, here's the lives that we are changing, here's the difference we are making in, in our society, or here's the lives we are saving.
I think those things are more sustainable than, hey, we need a, we need a new remodeling in the student center.
Right.
Right.
But organizations.
So, and if you do it like that, then you are raising typically unrestricted funds, right? If you're actually appealing to people and then they can, you know, make that renovation to the student, the student life center or whatever it is, because you'll have that, you'll have those partners in it.
Yeah.
So I really think of it as partnership.
So you, I had Tim Johnson on, and I said, like, you guys are the old guard, right? We have a new guard coming in and.
The difference, I mean, the difference I see, you know, in terms of the new guard versus the old guard, if we want to call them that is that our socialization with each other has really shifted over the years.
And so there's a lot of new learning for younger people going into the field of fundraising because socialization has changed.
What do you see? Has really shifted because you, you continue to work with fundraisers.
You worked with them you know, when you started and you worked with them now.
So what, what do you think are the challenges and what do you think are the opportunities? Obviously technology is the biggest change and that technology has come with I wouldn't say with baggage, but it comes with accountability that didn't used to be there.
You know, I remember back in the early days when you talk to a donor and let, let's say it's a family and they're, they're getting ready to retire off the family farm and they're going to, they're going to leave that farm to someone or leave the proceeds of that farm to someone.
And you'd hear things like, well, you folks know best how this ought to be used.
So you just take the money and use it the way you need, need to.
Well, since that time.
There's been enough fraud and abuse, even in the nonprofit world, that this is a much savvier generation.
And what you see now is here is the money I want to give you, and here's how I want it to be used, and I want to report.
You know, on the benefits who got, who, who got the money, how it was used and, and all those kinds of things, technology makes that doable in some ways that we didn't have before.
But at the same time it also puts a lot of strain on institutions because sometimes, I mean, there, there have been times when I've turned down money because I couldn't fulfill.
The donor restrictions on how it would be used.
And I think some nonprofits have gotten in trouble because they've accepted the money.
Then not used it the way they said they would use it.
And then of course, when you go back you're not, you're not getting any more.
So once again, I think the technology has, has helped us, but it's also added a layer of accountability, which I think probably nonprofits need.
But it also incurs a more expense for record keeping for software systems, for, you know, all those kinds of things that that didn't used to, didn't have to be there before.
Yeah.
Well, and I think it makes it more complex for the small nonprofits that are just a couple of people, you know, the, it, because they're trying to manage it all.
And I can say as a entrepreneur, like, you know, trying to manage it all yourself is, virtually impossible.
I don't know what I would do if I couldn't, you know, outsource some of these things.
And so I think that you're right.
It's a requirement really from the donor's perspective now, and you, you have to work with organizations that have skills at helping you do that.
If you're, if you're a really small shop.
Yeah, there's there's software out that helped you do that, but you know, we just went through a software transition and no telling how many records we lost or that we're having to recreate.
I mean, it adds a whole layer of administration that you didn't didn't used to have before.
Let me reach and see if I can find something on my desk.
Yeah, I guess I can show you this.
I'm going to hold this up for a minute.
This is from a $10 million donor.
Uhhuh He's giving me a million dollars a year for 10 years, and this is his spreadsheet.
It, it's in, it's interesting the difference between the old school and the new, new school.
You know, no one today I would get an Excel spreadsheet.
This the same donor.
Very, interestingly enough, we had a, had a meeting scheduled and for that meeting he was sent a calendar invite.
And so I saw him and I said, what? I'm sorry you missed the meeting.
He said, well, I didn't know about.
And I said, well, we sent you a calendar invite and he pulled out his date timer and opened it up and looked at it and said, well, I don't see it here anywhere.
And so, you know, there, there is a gap that needs to be bridged in, in sometimes that gap, for example, if you have an old donor.
who's used to old school giving you donations like that.
And then their son or their grandson, or you know, takes it over.
And all of a sudden there's a reporting requirement put on something that you didn't expect to have a reporting requirement on because the original donor didn't necessarily.
Want that or need that.
But now on down the line, people say, well, I want to, I want to know where that scholarship went.
Who got, who got my grandpa's scholarship this year.
And so there is a transition that's taking place in, in another, another generation, you won't have any of the old school they're, they're not going to be around anymore.
It's going to be all the new, new technology.
Yeah.
Though I find as I age.
I need more analog in my life.
And so there's a lot of attraction back to that.
So it'll swing the pendulum will swing.
Yeah.
I guess we saw that in the last election.
That's right.
Yeah.
So, you know, what let me think what I want to say here.
So how do we, how do we train our new fundraisers? Like, what is the best training then as we see these transitions and we see some of these trends, what are you finding? I feel like I feel like I know your responses.
So, but what do you think is the best way to train it? What if I get it wrong? I don't think you'll get it wrong.
I think you value people.
Well, I have a, I have a couple of situations where I've actually dealt with this because there's a there's someone who's coming up through advancement and they they called me.
At the institution I used to be president of, and they said, we've got three or four donors here that we don't have a relationship with outside of you.
And, and one of them had, had given me 18 million over my 12 years of my presidency.
So, you know, he was obviously a, a, a big supporter, but they said, we keep sending him proposals.
And he doesn't even respond to us.
And I said, that's because you've just gotten in the line of the other people who are after his, what, 500 million that he has, and there's nothing special about you.
What happens is you have to build a relationship.
And so fundraising basically is building relationships with people and then understanding, you know, I remember even when I was at Ohio Valley going, seeing one of our major donors.
And I went in with the person who, you know, very well that I always had some problems with and we'd get in there and he would just talk the whole time.
And I say, the way you raise money is you let people know.
You encourage people to talk and you find out what they're interested in and then you guide your discussion to what they want to do and what they're interested in and where they want to go, rather than just because, you know, once again, working in the foundation world, we get a lot of proposals every year.
The people who got money either had a really compelling case.
Or had some kind of relationship with us that, that was worthwhile to the, to the foundation.
And I think, I think that's still the key.
People, people are still the key.
And if you don't if you're just putting together spreadsheets and sending out information, every once in a while, you may get a hit, but you're going to be much more successful if you know who you're talking to and know what's important to them and know, know what they want to accomplish both with their lives and with their wealth.
Because that that's where the, that's where the nexus comes together in, in raising money.
Did I get it right? You did, because that's what you always told me.
You always told me like, pay attention to the people.
And that's definitely something that I feel like has really guided everything that I do.
You know, I look at, okay, so let's look at the person, like what's really going on with the person.
Because, and I think.
This has benefited me.
It's my entire career for sure.
But you know, I worked in human resources and I think that, and not just in human resources, I've actually, I see it across the sector and in every, in every aspect, but it's so easy to go for the path of least resistance, which is the hands off.
You know, unknown, not face to face option.
And I'm so guilty of it.
Cause I, I hate picking up the phone and making phone calls.
I have to force myself and schedule it in.
I'm right there with you.
You know, that, that reminded me of another, this I told you this person from my former institution asked me to, to contact a couple of donors.
And as we had the conversation, he said, now, Here's what we want the money for.
And, and I said, well, I'm not sure this person that you're asking me to go see is, is interested in that.
I said, so is it okay to just ask, ask for money? And, and he said, yeah.
But then.
I went to see this person and I was no longer in a role at the university.
I went to see this person and his wife had died nine months before, and we've probably spent an hour and a half at a restaurant talking him crying most of the time and talking about his wife and how much he missed her.
And I mean, they'd been married for 65 years and, and I got back and, and the advancement guy asked me, so how much did you get? And I said, I didn't get anything.
I didn't ask for anything.
And he said, well, that's why you went down there.
Why didn't you make the ask? I said, because it wasn't the right time or the right atmosphere.
And I said, real honestly, that's not how you raise money.
A week later, the college got a call from this man's daughter asking 000 in her father's name because I'd spent time with him.
And, and I've kept up that conversation since, you know, I call him every Every couple of months or so on to see how he's doing.
And, and that's, but I tried to explain to the advancement person.
It's not because we needed money and it's not because he had extra money.
It's because we reached out and, and helped him eat.
You know, we, we reached out at a time when he really needed somebody just to talk to.
Yes.
And it's, and you're right.
Like when we engage in other people's lives.
We are like a little blip in their timeline, you know, and so like it, that's, that's not how people work.
Like people don't work with blips.
We work with shining stars, right? When that person is a shining star in our life, we know it cause they keep, they're there.
They're shining even in our dark moments, you know, in our successes, they they're regularly present.
And so I do think it's a challenge that younger fundraisers are going to have to learn, I think that they learn it as they go through the process because you do learn that people are people are people and and people are entering into this profession for noble reasons, you know, they have something that they're passionate about that they really want to share with the world.
And so it is finding that balance.
And I think that just over time young people have.
Young people have decreased in their interactions with people.
So they're not as refined.
I was writing something today about developmental stages and we don't get to skip developmental stages.
You know, it may be delayed, but eventually the world will require us to go through that stage if we want to get to the next one.
Right.
And so, I feel like that's something.
That young professionals and they've always had to learn it, but I do think it's a challenge just because we interact so much more in non personal ways.
Yeah.
I think, I think we're seeing that in a lot of, a lot of ways.
I mean, I, what did I hear yesterday on the news that almost 80 percent of government workers work from their homes now.
And you know, when, when people are called back to the office, they're just, they're quitting rather than going back to the office.
And I'm thinking, how are you ever going to establish relationships? And, and get yourself in a position of being able to what arbitrate for decisions, have, have discussions, be able to convince people of your side of the argument.
Social media takes all the personality out of those kinds of conversations and you can't really.
You can't really overcome it.
You, you gotta, you gotta get out there.
So I, you know, I, I see that especially in my grandkids who, you know, they just love being on their phone or being, you know, playing games or whatever.
And then these kids go to college and they sit in a room and play games and they aren't, they're missing one of the best experiences they could have, which is socializing and learning how to, to deal with people on a, on a personal level, I mean, I, yeah.
So, you know, even, even conversations like this are better, but I love having meetings across the table where I can, you know, interact with people on a more personal level.
Yeah.
And it's a practice that once you do it, You will, it it's self perpetuating you enjoy it.
Like I rarely, I mean, my kids say they don't enjoy it.
You know, they're 20 and my youngest, actually, I thought about this the other day because my youngest is turning 16 this year.
So that means you left OVC 16 years ago.
Cause he was about eight days old whenever we celebrated departure.
Yeah.
People celebrate my departure a lot.
I noticed.
Oh, it was a fun day and he was just a little guy, but so, you know, my kids are 20 and 16 and they will say with their words that they don't want to engage with people face to face, but when, and part of it's because this is the expectation that has always been set when people come into our house, but when people come into our house, They enjoy sitting around the table or sitting around the, in the living room, especially if it's mixed generations, you know, and the older generations are talking stories about their lives.
Like they enjoy that, but their first response is I'm not going to enjoy it, or I don't want to do it.
Maybe it's that I don't want to do it.
Not that I'm not going to enjoy it.
And so it inhibits their own.
Success in doing it because they talk themselves out of it before they ever do it.
And I noticed when my son went to college that I am with you, like this should be, this is the greatest time and to learn how to like socialize across the spectrum.
Cause you're we've taken you, I always say that the young school years, It's a social experiment.
We throw you all into a pot and see how you guys mix.
And when you find out, well, I don't mix with everyone.
Then when you go to college, you get to pick the pot that you're going to be in and you get a mix you know, and so it is a learned behavior though, because you know, I, I probably right there with your kids, I don't seek out.
opportunities to socialize.
Now I've learned how to survive, but you know, if you go to a big group or something and I'm in the big group, I'm going to be standing in a corner and will not engage.
But you know, there comes a time in your career or in your life when you realize, Hey, I'm not, I'm not getting anywhere.
I need to engage.
I need to forge those relationships and have those interactions.
And once you learn how to do that, you're Maybe you still don't enjoy them or look for them.
I mean, I, I know people who just can't, can't stand not being around people and not talking to them all the time.
And there's some people who I avoid because they're talking all the time, but at the same time, you know, you, you, As you mature, you kind of learn how to engage in those and you learn how to manage those emotions.
You learn how to manage those proclivities that you got and get to the point where you can be a at least enter dialogue and have discussions with people.
Yeah.
It's that developmental stage.
You have to go through it.
Like, you know, there's that Bible song that says you can't go around it.
You can't go over it.
Can't go under it.
You have to go through the door.
That's true with developmental stages.
It's like, you have to.
you have to figure it out if you want to get or progress further.
So, but it's a challenge for them, but I'm sure that they'll overcome it.
They, the younger generations have all kinds of amazing ideas.
I do see that they're very engaged in, in the idea of thinking of a different and brighter tomorrow.
So I look forward to seeing them hopefully jump into the ship and help to make those.
Dreams of reality.
Yeah, it is amazing.
What's going to be happening over the next especially the next decade, maybe the next couple of decades with with all the technology with AI coming along, it's going to change everything we do and how we do it.
I mean, it already, even though we're in the nascent stage of it right now I can see it already in everything, everything I'm doing.
And now that we're putting Elon Musk in charge of the government, no telling on how.
No telling how that's going to work out.
Yeah, no telling.
But hopefully people will find more opportunities to engage with each other.
I have a friend who always is.
He always is encouraging people to meet their, their neighbor.
He's like, how are you going to love and change the world when you can't talk to your neighbor across the street? So I love that.
We have to have a balance, but yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.
You know, that's, I know you're, you're aware of this, but it's around the The 1950s, you know, when everybody came back from the war, then all of a sudden we traded our houses no longer had front porches.
They had driveways and garages because everybody started driving.
And it's amazing how that has changed our society because we don't sit on the front porch and talk to our neighbors across the yard anymore.
We, we watch the TV.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, nothing, nothing under the sun is new.
I always think about that.
That's, it's a passage from Ecclesiastes and, you know, I always think It'll come back around because we are a creature that craves community.
And so I believe that the rotation will come back around and we'll have need to be engaging at the more local level, more frequently, you know? Well, I think, I think we're starting to see signs of that already.
And I think, I think that had something to do with the last election act, real honestly.
You know, I think people's desire to get, get back to what the good old days.
I'm not sure, you know, you know, I, I've, I've had this phrase for years.
It's a, it's a joke.
I know, but you know, things aren't as good as they used to be, but then again, they never were.
Yep.
Yes.
So, yeah, it's true.
And, you know, but that's okay because sometimes our belief about the good old still propels.
positive behaviors and but negative behaviors, but we'll focus on the positive because I'm, I'm more optimistic than that.
Well, thank you for sharing today.
I am so glad to have you on.
So glad to talk to you again.
I will try to be better about picking up a phone and calling you in one of these days, I'm going to come visit you.
You know, I, you know, I appreciate you that I've all, you know, I've, I'm going to say this in public now that I've always said in private, you're one of the smartest women on the planet.
So, God bless your, your success in, in your career.
Your businesses that you've started and the work that you're doing.
And I appreciate the help that you've given, given me through the years and also here at Bethany.
Well, thank you.
Yes.
I'm always, always excited to help.
Always excited to get to work with you again.
I thank you for coming on.
I don't know about that smartest person in the world.
I have three kids and probably a husband and parents that would argue with you.
Yeah.
What do they know? That's right.
But I am honored that you say it.
So thank you so much.
And to our listeners, I hope you have a great week and we'll talk to you next week.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Nonprofit 411.
I hope you found today's conversation as insightful and inspiring as I did.
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