Michelle Speas, MA, CFRE
Founder and president, The NonProfit Collaborative
The NonProfit Collaborative is a cooperative of nonprofit consultants and firms willing to negotiate their fees to help you get the work you need done. We are a comprehensive nonprofit consulting firm with services ranging from customized one-day staff and board governance retreats, capital-campaign consulting, fund-development plans and audits, filing 990 returns, needs assessments, campaign-readiness assessments, print design, software selections, public relations and communications building, website development, legal issues and many additional services. Beyond our eight associates, we have access to additional senior professionals.
How does your charitable work affect you personally?
After working two years in Asia after graduate school, I returned to the U.S. with a heavy conviction not to complete my Ph.D. in history, but jump straight in to the world of changing people’s lives.
What are the "returns" for working in the charitable sector (personal, societal, monetary, etc.)?
Charitable work is about seeing change and empowering individuals and organizations to fulfill their God given potential in the world. It is both deeply spiritual to me and a call to action to serve others.
The returns, in our minds are often small compared to what we actually deliver to the recipient, and how they view it. I recently coordinated the U.S. tour of an African Children’s Choir from Uganda in the Southeast in eight states. While in Uganda in September 2010, I had to purchase the jewelry that would be sold during the tour to support the NGO in Uganda and its mission. There was a young mother with children who had graduated from a two-year training program to teach her how to braid hair, sew or make jewelry. She had been hand picked off the streets in one the top-four ranking countries in Africa for orphaned children due to AIDS and tribal war. All she needed was a buyer to legitimize her “degree” so that she could rent a stall selling her jewelry as she had “no reputation” as a jewelry maker, thus no one would buy from her. Her skills were extraordinary and I purchased $3,000 worth of paper bead necklaces from her after two days of following local customs and “inspecting” her skills. She immediately began to weep, as now her family had a future that was economically secure as she could share that the U.S. Choir had purchased her jewelry. It was the most humbling moment in my 20-plus year career – knowing that my very simple, and easy decision (her prices were lower, quality superior, than other craftswomen, and she needed a start) would provide economic sustainability for a widowed mother and her children for many years to come. Never underestimate the decisions that we make day-to-day is the lesson I learned.
How can charitable giving be improved?
Charitable giving can be improved by fundraisers talking less and listening more – at the donor and institutional levels.
How has your organization adapted in response to the recession?
We have adapted to the recession in two ways – one is by using the power of social media to mobilize the cause of the nonprofit with extraordinary results. And two, by going old school – by going back to the basics of highly personal, customized, thoughtful interactions with every staff member, donor, client and volunteer. It sounds corny, but there is no replacement for old fashioned manners.
What makes an effective leader?
An effective leader is one who has a humble and teachable spirit, great listening and discerning ears, is patient, innovative, creative and a very good fundraiser. At the end of the day, a great leader is one that you work with that truly cares enough about you to take the time to mentor and teach you. Never compromise your ethics.
What changes would you like to see in the charitable sector?
What changes would I like to see? Honestly, more of us “senior” people, and I am only 42, walking along beside the next generation of leaders. Ethics are a “compromise,” that I see being sacrificed more and more. We need to raise a generation of leaders that understand the call to this work, and the cost they may have to pay, to make ethical decisions that protect the human and emotional rights of those they serve.
