How to Build A Profitable and Impactful Nonprofit Consulting Business with Cindy Wagman

It's March Madness people. No, not the sports ball March Madness. It's my 13th anniversary of being in business. And I have a goal of hitting 100,000 podcast downloads. Here are three ways to help. One, download one or more of your favorite episodes, including setting your fundraising mindset with Ria Wong, ethical storytelling with Calliope Gleros, what the best fundraisers do differently with Sabrina Walker Hernandez, and my special series on what's next in social media for nonprofits, just to name a few. Number two, share an episode with a friend or a colleague. You can go to pod.link backslash nonprofit nation to find descriptions and links to all the episodes. Number three, take a screenshot of the podcast and share with your network. Be sure to tag me so I can find it and share it out also. I truly appreciate all of you, your time, your attention, and your passion to make the world a better place. Now let's get to today's episode. Hello and welcome to nonprofit nation. I'm your host Julia Campbell, and I'm going to sit down with nonprofit industry experts, fundraisers, marketers, and everyone in between to get real and discuss what it takes to build that movement that you've been dreaming of. I created the nonprofit nation podcast to share practical wisdom and strategies to help you confidently find your voice, definitively grow your audience, and effectively build your movement. If you're a nonprofit newbie or an experienced professional who's looking to get more visibility, reach more people, and create even more impact than you're in the right place. Let's get started. Hi everyone. Welcome back to nonprofit nation. I'm your host Julia Campbell thrilled that you're joining us today. And it's a little bit of a different topic today, but something that I know a lot of you are very interested in whether you are a small nonprofit looking to work with a consultant or whether you are a fundraiser or a marketer, a nonprofit professional looking to take the leap to consulting. We have the expert on both sides here today. So I'm definitely going to pick her brain about both things. Cindy Wagman is the president and founder of the Good Partnership, the home of the fractional fundraising movement. We'll talk a lot about that connecting small nonprofits and the fractional fundraisers that serve them. She has many, many, many designations, you know, CFRE, MBA. I love it. She's a presenter, a speaker, a host of the top rated small nonprofit podcast, and best-selling author of Raise It, the Reluctant Fundraisers Guide to Raising Money Without Selling Your Soul Went Incredible Title. And in 2022, Cindy started coaching other nonprofit serving consultants to help them build impactful and profitable businesses. She's also the co-host of The Confessions with Jess and Cindy podcast that serves consultants. And I have been fortunate enough to be a guest on that podcast. And I listened to every single episode. I think it was just, it filled such a hole in the sector, such a hole for consultants, because so much of the information out there is really not designed with nonprofits and, you know, mission-driven organizations in mind. So I absolutely recommend checking out the small nonprofit podcast, The Confessions podcast, and The Good Partnership. So Cindy, welcome. Thank you. And thank you for all of those wonderful words. It's such a pleasure to be with you and to have had you on The Confessions podcast. Such a good episode. So I'd love to open and transparent you, you are. It's just such a fantastic idea, because when I found this podcast and when I found the work that you and Jess Campbell are doing together and the work that you do through the good partnership, I had never really seen a community of nonprofit consultants. It's sort of something I'd always wanted to happen and thought, oh, that'd be a great idea. But I never picked up the ball and ran with it. And you both did. And I think that's, it's just amazing. And you have this fantastic Slack channel. I will put all of those resources into the show notes for anyone that wants to check it out. But Cindy, how did you get started in nonprofit work? Because I know that you've been a fundraiser for a very long time. Yeah. So I'm a bit of a rarity in the sector, in that I decided I wanted to fundraise when I was in university. So I hadn't graduated. You're not an accidental felon to a fundraiser. I'm not. Yeah, I was, it was very intentional. And I even wrote a thesis in my undergrad on feminist fundraising. Incredible. And I want to read that. It's really boring. It doesn't sound boring at all. It's over 20 years old and very academic. But I, I, yeah, I knew what as soon as I discovered that that was a career option, it just felt right for me. And so I truly have been doing it ever since in organizations very small and very large. And I discovered that the small ones are where my heart is. And so that's what I focus on now. When did you go off on your own? So it was 2015. I was on Matt Lee with my second kid and my mentor, Lori, and I were having coffee. And she said, you know, this organization, they're really cool. And they're looking for someone around a capital campaign. Would you be interested? And so I don't know, like I have a pretty comfy, cushy job that most people would be pretty like envious of. Don't want to leave that. And she said, well, would you do this as a consultant? And I was like, Oh, I can do that. Like that was my actual first reaction. Oh, I can do that. Yeah, like I kind of thought consulting. I mean, no shade to anyone who's done this. But I always expected it was like your semi retirement plan. And I had, or you have to work for some big agency. Yeah, yeah, or you're an agency, right? Like, that was what I was picturing is. And that was my experience with consultants. When I was in house, like I had, but you know, we had worked with agencies doing direct appeal and stuff like that. Great. Like those are, that's really a specialized job. And I'd worked with those like semi retired consultants who come in and give you advice that you've been telling the board for years, but they listen only when this other prison comes in. So I didn't really think of it until she said it. And then I was like, okay, this is it. And that first contract that capital campaign, it was like a two year contract. It was three days a week. I was earning more than I was in my full time cushy job. So it checked off all the marks and it was a super cool, fun campaign. And that gave me the runway to start to figure out what I want to do with this business. And you founded the good partnership when that was officially when the good partnership started in 2015. Okay, in 2015. Okay. Yeah, I started my business in 2010. And I'm still j Campbell social marketing because I never picked another name. People ask me, yeah, I love the good partnership. I hate the good partnership. Oh, no. I hate it. Like at the time, it's just like, oh, I couldn't think of anything better. There are so many goods in our sector. And I don't like it, but it is here and I'm not going to change it. I do know that it has enough brand equity that it's not worth redoing. And also like, is there something that's going to be that much more impressive? Probably not. I do some coaching and consulting under like four other consultants under Cindy Wagman coaching. But for the most part, it's a good partnership and it's here to stay. I think that's funny because I have two conflicting things that I usually tell people when they're starting out their consultancy. One is just get started and don't wait for everything to be perfect. But the second is think really strongly about your name. And if you're going to incorporate or get an LLC, think really strongly about it. But I think both can be true at the same time. Yeah. And like it has not made or broken my success. Really exactly. That is not the deciding factor in how well I do. Exactly. It's not like, oh, the good partnership. I'm not going to hire Cindy. Like that's not what we're saying. Cheesy name. It's overdone. We'll see. I kind of like it, but I love cheesy stuff. So I'm going to switch gears today and talk about consulting. But it's definitely going to be relevant to the small nonprofits in the audience that are looking for consultants. But we're going to talk about starting a consulting business and then how small nonprofits especially can work with consultants. But I know that in 2022, you started coaching nonprofit serving consultants and you co-host the confessions podcast, you manage the vibrant Slack channel. So how did that all come about? Yeah. So I want to shout out to Jess Campbell, who actually she set up the Slack channel. But Jess and I have sort of found each other in the Sea of Online connections. And we collaborate a lot on things, including the podcast. She's your kindred spirit. We are. It's so fun to work with her. And we both had sort of been doing these different things, working with the same audience and came together to do even more. So it's really fun. But both of us have the same story of being having the experience of consulting. And I've taken, I mean, before we start recording, you mentioned the two big investments you've made in your professional development as a consultant. I love investing in myself. So I've done business by design for anyone who doesn't like know what these are. It's irrelevant. If you're not an online marketing, online business nerd. But there's people that we follow in the Porterfield and all these programs that are teaching you how to build your business or how to build an online digital business. We're talking about Serena Sue and Maconnallians. Yeah. And I've done Colin Boyd around speaking. And there's so many and none of them know the nonprofit sector. There's even actual programs around B2B, consultancies. And I found exactly what you just said. So yeah, they just don't understand that decision making is different and how to work with organizations is different. And also, one of the things that I found really challenging, again, I knew I wanted to work with small organizations. That's been the touchstone for me and my business. And I found that even traditional consulting solutions, like being the expert and coming in and giving a strategy or a plan, fell short because small organizations didn't have the capacity to implement. And so how we serve, how we sell, all of that is different. And no one teaches that. So Jess and I kind of come at it from different approaches. But you know, it's that what we do is different and we need a space to learn how to do well. I think what's so unique about what you do and the partnership that you and Jess have with all of the resources you provide is that you're coming at it from a very collaborative standpoint where a rising tide lifts all ships. And I say this all the time and I firmly believe it. And I'm just a big fan of, you know, Seth Godin and how you don't really have competitors because you have your unique spin on things. So, you know, someone that comes into the sector and is like, Oh, I want to be a consultant. Oh, but I might not want to talk to other consultants or collaborate with other consultants. What would the advice be that you would give to them? I don't blame people for that because coming out of the nonprofit sector, that's a mindset that we've learned in charities, right? It is so private. We got to get our piece of the pie. Yeah, we're competing for donors. We're competing for funding. We're competing for this and that. So we've been taught this over and over and over again, but that is so far from the truth. And the other, I would say that so much of my business, like has come from direct referrals from other consultants. And I also like, I just hired Jess to write a bunch of emails for me because she does it way better than I do it and way less time. And so there's this community where we can support each other. And even if someone does something similar to you, they're not going to do it the same way. They're not going to do it the same audience. And let's be honest, like, we're in this sector. There's no like brand new ideas. People are coming to us because of who we are and how we connect with people. And so there's so much space. I remember my friend Emma Luzy, who's amazing. She's based here in Toronto when she was like, Oh, should I consult? I was like, yes, you should. I truly think that the benefits are so significant. And that's one of the reasons why we haven't so to touched upon this yet. But I created this, I didn't create the model, but I created a sort of space for this of fractional fundraising, where small organizations can hire a fractional fundraiser. And I can talk about what that means. But the whole reason I created that is because we were doing it in house and we were fully booked. And I have a really hard time saying no to good organizations. I'm like, I want to help everyone. And so I went from having like four full-time in house fractional fundraisers to now a network of 11 who are all their own consultants, they run their own businesses. And they are fully booked. And so we're growing. And it's just there's so much work out there. And our sector needs meaningful solutions. And I think there's a lot of untapped opportunity to both have a thriving business, but also impacting organizations in a meaningful way. Because I think there's a lot of, there are some consultants who give consulting a bad name, and who do things that are not necessarily that valuable. But I want to call like the next generation of consultants who are all about community, or I was on a call yesterday, or calling it like the cool consultants. Like there's a community of people who are driven by mission, they want to help, and they want to support each other, and they want to be in community. They just don't necessarily want to work the full-time job anymore. So this is very interesting. And I think it's kind of revolutionary. It's like so innovative. And we were talking about it before we were recording, because your fractional fundraisers program, it's for consultants, people that want to grow their consulting business or start a business. But it's also for a small nonprofit that needs a fractional fundraiser. So you're really answering two huge pain points here. And it just got my wheels turning because people come to me for referrals. They ask me, I need a social media manager. I do not do social media, day-to-day social media management or posting. But they trust me, and they know me, and maybe they've worked with me or heard me speak, and want to understand, want to know, first of all, how would that work? What does it look like? Where could I look? So you're really creating this ecosystem of consultants that are trained by you and vetted by you, and then organizations that come to you if they really need that in-house help. So yeah, talk to me about, it's like a system, it's a plan. And what are some of... If people are really thinking they're ready to launch a consulting business, what are some things that they should consider? So the fractional fundraiser academy is my education program where I basically teach people experienced fundraisers. I'm not teaching them how to fundraise, but I'm teaching experienced fundraisers how to build a fractional fundraising business. It's like the MBA. Exactly. Exactly. And it's a very specific model that I just want to touch on the win-win-win of it, because to me that's so important is as I grew my business, as we tried different things, as we did this in house, I kept trying to figure out like, how do I do what's best for the organization, what's best for my team or the people around me, and how do I benefit? And I feel like we often talk about like, you can be two, but not all three, but I actually didn't accept that. I was like, I think we can hit all those. So what I did is I said, okay, well, like literally when I hired people in house, they were making like 40, 50,000 dollars. When I transitioned them to this model, they're making a hundred, 140,000, right? So it benefits them. And I get like, they have everything, everything they need to be successful in this business, including coaching and access to me and community. And then a benefits organization, I want to talk about that because I know a lot of your audience are non-profits. So for people who are thinking about consulting, it's basically like a launchpad. It's like, everything is thought, I've tested the limits of like, how many clients you can have, how much you should charge, like all of those things have been tested, and it's packaged and ready to go. And it's a great launch. Like, if you're an experienced fundraiser, it will get you set up. Some people like to do this, like with three clients and they're working full time and it's great. But I have other consultants who have one or two clients and either just, that's all they work or they do other consulting work on the side. You get to choose. That's my favorite line these days because as consultants, I think we feel like we have to do it this way or have to do it that way. But you get to choose. But for organizations, I think that this is such a game-changing offer. Now, it's not unique to fractional fundraisers. There's fractional CMOs, there's fractional CFOs. But the idea is small organizations traditionally haven't had access to strategic experienced staffing, right? Your budgets are small. And I experienced this where I was the first and only hired fundraiser in an organization. And I wasn't paid that much. And I was successful, but I saw organizations where you'd come in and you'd have a board and an executive director who are telling you to do all the wrong things. And then you have other duties as assigned, scope creep. If you're a person that's 40 hours a week or 50, let's be realistic, like 60 hours a week, probably the scope creep. It just, everything but programs ends up on your plate. Yeah, but they can't afford an experienced fundraiser who can actually say, okay, no, that's actually not the right thing. And so there's this gap that was creating this perpetual cycle for small organizations of wasting their money because they had to invest in fundraising. They wouldn't be consistent in implementation. They'd have high staff turnover. And then it would just reset. And so this fractional model allows organizations to get consistent implementation done from a strategic perspective, like our contracts start at 12 months and often last longer. And so they're creating the culture or the environment of the organization that eventually will be ready to hire in house. But it's designed to kind of bridge that gap. And so it really and actually raise money, right? Because fundraising results come from implementing the right strategy consistently. And there are so few organizations that again, it's the three-legged stool, like we do all of it. So it benefits the organization significantly. We've seen organizations have like incredible fundraising growth and establish their systems and change that culture and all those good things. So that's the two big wins. But I often get asked, what's in it for me? Like, how do I benefit? Because I actually don't charge anything to the organizations for matching them to fundraisers. People pay me to learn this. So they pay to be part of the academy. Sort of like a chamber of commerce, almost. You pay for membership and then you get the benefits. Exactly. So after you graduate the academy, there's like an ongoing, very inexpensive membership option that you can just continue to be part of our community, have access to me. But at the end of the day, the charities don't pay anything extra. So it's a pretty good, well, I think it's a pretty good model. So this is really interesting because I do think that there are a lot of small nonprofits out there that need the strategy, but also need the implementation. And I see that all the time, where they don't have a fundraising plan, they don't have a marketing plan. Maybe they've never hired a person in-house before, or maybe they've been without an in-person higher for a while, and they need to kind of rough things up again and ramp things up again. They are just so scared about making that in-person higher. I mean, it's so huge with benefits and health insurance and everything that is required for the in-person hire. But what they don't want is a consultant just to come in and tell them, okay, you should do this, you should do this, you should do this, but not help them implement. So I think that implementation piece is huge. So I see the I see consultancies. I mean, really, there's no mold. You could do a strategic consultancy. You could do a consultancy where you just do coaching, coaching calls, right? But you can do a consultancy with implementation. There's all sorts of variety. So there's, I sort of bucket them and I created this little quiz. Oh, yeah. The goodpartnership.com slash quiz, right? Yeah. And it's designed to help people figure out their fundraising personality because there are lots of options and you can be a hybrid of them. But at the end of the day, we have different styles of working and we have different rewards, like internal, external types of rewards that make us feel good about the work that we're doing and the impact that we're having. And so I have the four buckets that I've come up with. One is the fractional, right? Like where you love implementation, you want to roll up your sleeves, you want to see transformational change that you can actually like see and touch and smell type thing. But there's the coaches who are focused on uplifting leadership and helping other people become like their best selves. And so like that's enough. And I do coaching. So I, you know, appreciate that as well. But it's not coming in and doing all the work, but it's really building capacity. There's the experts who have like so much knowledge that they want to impart and share with the sector so that they also again, like can do their jobs better. And then there's the agencies, which we talked about like right at the beginning, like they're kind of experts, but they come in and they actually like work on the projects and they get it done. And some people are really well suited to being in an agency or even starting an agency because they're focused. They know what they're an expert in, but they also want a little bit of the implementation. So yeah, those are the four and you can go, you can figure out which one you are, as you said at the good partnership dot com slash quiz, but there's so many models. And I think that that's like a huge myth that's been perpetuated in our sector is like, you're either the agency or you're like a coach, expert who's like kind of give advice and walk away. So yeah, there's a lot of options. And a lot of nonprofits want different things. I find that some organizations I work with who are hopefully listening and I love you, Nadore, you I'm like a therapist. I'm very often a couples therapist between marketing and fundraising. That's a lot of what I do trying to get them to understand each other and work together on a campaign. I feel like that is a lot of what I do. But also there have been times when I have done implementation, copywriting, campaign plan, writing a campaign plan, doing an audit, all those kinds of things. So you're right, there's really not that one specific model, but I love that. So if you're looking to build a consulting business or you're just interested, you know, dip your toe in the pond, take the quiz, I'll put it in the show notes. And I want to kind of transition over to what I think holds a lot of people back from taking the plunge, which is needing to have your ducks in a row. Like you have everything has to be perfect. I know that I never probably would have started a consulting business if I wasn't laid off and forced to do so. And then of course, like never looked back. But so many people come to me they're like, do I need ConvertKit or MailChimp or Constant Contact? Do I need Dubsato? Do I need QuickBooks? Do I need this? Do I need that? And I guess my advice would be just start, just get started, like WordPress, Squarespace, do something for free, hang your shingle up, your digital shingle, and then really piece it together as you go. I mean, you don't have to have your invoicing software ready to go on day one. Like, yeah, so what would your advice be? Yeah. And guess what? When you start with in day one is going to change over time. I literally just changed my email system like today. I'm obsessed with ConvertKit. I just switched to ConvertKit. Oh, I can't even tell you how obsessed I am with that. But here's the thing, like most of the time when you start a consulting business, you actually don't need an email marketing tool and just like, just like, you know, like, exactly. But like most of the time you need your clients. So what exactly keeping track of Google Doc, keep track your clients. What are you doing to get those clients? Yes. Oh, let's talk about this. Yeah. I mean, really, it's networking and putting yourself out there and being really clear on how you help. So often we talk about our own expertise and like what we're good at, but it actually is not relevant. Organizations want to know how you are solving their problems. So you really don't need a lot. And in the Fractional Fundraising Academy, I mean, I like those systems. So I've actually created templates or like very specific recommendations on what's the path? Like it's the MVP, right? The minimal viable product. What is the path that is going to get you to saying yes to clients as fast as possible and not spending all your time manually managing invoices and stuff like that. So like I have, I have like a proposal template. I have a Squarespace One Page site template that I created with messaging prepopulated. I'm such a nerd. I have like email templates. So you need to go network. Here's an email that you can send to like five people just asking for coffee. I definitely think like starting with some networking as you're building your business, like you want to register, you want to get insurance, you want to do all these things, but you start networking right away. You want to be connecting with people. And then how do you ask for business, which is the biggest thing. And again, it's about it's not about you. It's about putting yourself out there and how you are serving. I always think of sales as a service. How are you serving organizations? And if you can just get out there and start doing that, you will start getting clients. The other thing with the Fractional Fundraising is you don't need a lot of clients. It's not the feast and famine of traditional consulting. Three clients is like a full workload. It's not like I need 20 clients this year. Again, it's designed to just be like a really smooth transition, but you don't have to be hustling. Like no one, I think that like a couple years ago, hustle culture was all the hustle culture. Hustle, I've seen like t-shirts and mugs and all the things with hustle. No one is interested in that anymore. I think it's a very like ablest misogynistic way of thinking because hustle culture, like who can raise a family and have a house and take care of aging parents and also hustle 90 hours a week. Like you just, it's just not possible for so many of us. And that's what I really like about consulting is you do have that extra freedom once you kind of find your groove. And that's really what impressed me about the Fractional Fundraising. When I was looking at the FAQs, you really do answer. You're like, okay, how, you know, and I'll let everybody go to the website and look it up. But how much money can I expect to make a month? How many clients should I have? All these really tactical questions that people have because they're so, you know, consulting. Like what is that word? Nobody knows what I do. I don't think my friends, my family, feel like, oh, she goes around the country and speaks and talks to nonprofits. I don't know what she does. And it's so hard to explain the work that goes into it. So I think it's a lot, it's scary for people. It's this big, you know, sort of weird, ephemeral thing. I have two kids, right? I'm the primary breadwinner. I mean, my husband and I make similar amounts of money, but I make more. And I get it. It's a big step. It is scary. And also when I started, I found like the power dynamic shift of going from like, you know, please, they're going to have a job to, I'm a consultant. Here's what I charge. And like, this is how I can help you. It's so different. And so I like to have a lot of information when I make decisions. And so I can appreciate that other people want answers too. So I actually have, I think on April 12, I have a budget template coming out where you can actually like plug in your revenue plug it. Well, it's pre populated with revenue and expenses, but you can tweak them. So if you're like, I only want to work, like I have one member in our network who she has kids and they have some Airbnb properties that she manages. She's like, I just, I love fundraising and want to help organizations. So I only want one client, right? You get to put in one client in that template. But if you want three and you want to be like working full time hours, you get to choose. But even with that, there's so many examples of how much more flexible, like even if you're working quote, unquote full time as a consultant, you know, I, Monday, I canceled all my meetings and went on my son's field trip. Or one of our consultants had a family emergency and had to drop everything for a few days. And you can do that. So we want to know that it's safe because it's a big step for people. In terms of finding clients, this, I think is the really big question also, of course, like getting more visibility is like the number one question. So we should probably talk about that. But I want to say one thing about getting clients. So my best friend, she quit her job, started an organization business. And she was very smart about it because she just told everybody told everybody, everybody, first of all needs organization. I already hired her for like five different things. And then I was like, Oh, my mom needs this. And this, you got to tell people, I think that we are so worried about coming off as salesy or marketing, marketing or smarmy or I don't know, spammy. But you have to just put it out there and say, and people are going to be so thrilled to help you. And I know that I still get referrals from friends that are sitting on nonprofit boards, or maybe they went to a conference, or maybe they talked to somebody that runs a nonprofit starting a nonprofit. And they're like, Oh, Julia is like the nonprofit expert or she does nonprofit marketing, like you should talk to her. So if you don't ever tell people what you do or put it out there, then you're not going to be able to get those referrals and do that networking. So I think that mindset of we're salesy, well, no, you're just simply letting people help you build your business. But also, you have a solution to a problem. That's how you need to think about it. I think they're not helping you. They're helping the organizations they care about exactly. That's a better, even a better way to frame it totally. And that's the crux of it is there is, we think that there's like a limit on good will, right? And our desire to like be helpful in the world. But there isn't like when we put it and again, like that's why I created these templates, because it took me a long time to learn how to put myself out there and how to approach sales as a service. But it's actually not complicated at all, because it doesn't have anything to do with me. But it's like, how are the people in my network? Like, what are the organizations they care about? What are their challenges? And how am I put on this planet to help them? And that is like, well, if I think about it that way, I can't shut up because I know I can help, right? I know that I am put here to do good things and to serve in that way. And so I'm not talking about myself. I'm just here to offer support. And so yeah, sales, like putting yourself out there, even the word sales, like it's, it implies this complex system, and it doesn't have to be that way. But all of my first clients came from my immediate network. And over time, I've been marketing and now that's not always true. Although I yesterday, I had a business development call with a woman who I've known for many years. She went to high school with my husband, right? Like, so your network is still there. They're always going to be there, even if you do invest in marketing and all of that. But they want to see you succeed and they want the organizations they care about to get help. So again, so when when? So in terms of marketing, I do want to talk a little bit about this, because people get very concerned, where should they be? Should they be everywhere? And I actually just talked to Mallory Erickson about the marketing that she does on Instagram. And she said that like 50% of her clients come from Instagram. So I think she's a really good data point to say, I'm going to double down on Instagram. You know, I don't really get clients from Instagram, but I don't use it in that way. I get more clients from speaking from my podcast from email and from referrals. So in terms of visibility, how do you recommend we kind of prioritize where we are? So I think it's like, what are we good at? So what do we get at? What do we like? I don't like Instagram reels. I like speaking. I like speaking. I have two podcasts, and I have a mini like private podcast coming out as part of the launch of the academy. So that's like three podcasts, right? I could talk and talk about podcasts. Love it. But also that's become how people know me. And they know my voice. So at the end of the day, like that's you got to pick where to play where what feels good to you and where your audience plays. So like at the end of the day, if your audience isn't there, that's not helpful. But as long as they're playing, you have an opportunity to stand out in that space. So you can't do everything. You know, we all know that. And honestly, I also think that it's the same with fundraising. Like don't do all the things, focus on a few things and do them really well, consistently over a period of time. And you will see compounded results. And so yeah, for me, it's just like, I like podcasting. I don't even know why. But one, a friend of mine, Avery, when I first started thinking about the podcast, she said something that blew my mind that I just want to share because it was a game changer for me. So she said, like we were sitting over a glass of wine on a patio on a sunny day. I think it was like spring or fall in Toronto. I'm visiting you next time I come to Toronto. Yes. Yes. Please anyone come to me in Toronto, but especially you. So she's, I was like, yeah, I've been thinking this was like four or five years ago. Maybe what I think my podcast is about four or five years old. She said, well, is there anyone else you can partner with to do this? So you don't have to shoulder the whole thing. And so I was like, okay, there's three organizations such companies that I actually serve the same audience. So again, service, we serve the same audience, small nonprofits. And one of them, I had done like a webinar for and it felt like I sort of evaluated, which would make the most sense. They did a lot of content and I just reached out to the woman who helped, was like my contact for the webinar. And I said, I've been thinking about this podcast. Would you want to partner with me? And they said, yes. Now, this was like when I had maybe 1500 people on my email list, maybe less. Their list is like 80,000 people. Okay. Huge. And it's not a secret. Like you can probably Google who the partner was, but I don't partner with them anymore. And that's a whole other conversation, but they're great. They were a great partner. It was a conscious uncoupling. Yeah. At the time, I thought like, who am I to pitch them on this thing? And I mean, that's one of the reasons my podcast, as I was partnering with them, our podcast was number one in Canada, pretty much consistently for three years. Now, it wasn't after that because their audience was so huge, but at the end of the day, like it was an amazing experience. And sure, do I have the same number of listeners? Not quite, but I still have a pretty significant base. So yeah, that was a game changer for me. But you got the name out there, the word out there, and you got exposure to the right people, which is key. I love that idea of partnering. That's really a lot what I did. And that's kind of my biggest piece of advice for consultants trying to get their, you know, get their name out there. Like, what does that even mean? Like you could get your name out there, but not in a good way, right? You want to make sure it's a good way. So I did the same kind of thing. I just sort of emailed the marketing and partnerships director at a lot of these software companies, see if I could do webinar, do a guest blog post, be on their podcast. I just really did a lot of pitching, like a lot of pitching. And it really worked out well. And now I have these lifelong partnerships with people that I mean, years have been years and some are really good friends of mine now. So I think just being very clear on, like you said, like what you offer, what's the pain point you're solving, what's your kind of unique take on it? And then because if you pitch somebody like that, there has to be unique value to their audience. So what's not saying like, hey, here's my bio and I'm amazing. But it's what's the value to your audience that I want to get in front of? I think that's really important. If we can learn anything, it's like, it's not about us. It's not about us. But we have something to share. So how are we sharing that? How do we help others? And yeah, and one thing I'll say is the other part of that is like, what are our values? Because while it's not about us, we have to at some point draw some lines in the sand around what do we stand for? And what do we want to be known for? So it's playing around with all those things. But again, if you start with service, just start with that as you're, you know, how can I serve whatever community I want to, I want to support? I feel like that's your guiding star that will take you in the right direction. So sadly, we have to wrap it up. My last question, what do you wish you knew when you were first starting out? Like, what would you tell 2015 Cindy? Honestly, I really like the journey that I've had. And I would reinforce that I can make decisions that are aligned with my values. And it might feel like it's hurting my business, but it won't. And that I will bring me to the people who I need to be with and in community with. But also like, I feel like sometimes we hold ourselves back just for we play safe. But I don't know if I would do things differently. So yeah, I really just like have the courage to stand by what makes sense for you. I love that. I really, really love that. I don't think I would change anything differently either. But it's all part of the journey because that makes us who we are. All right. So where can people find out about you work with you, find out more about a fractional fundraiser academy? Just go to the good partnership.com. I'm on Instagram, but not very active. The good partnership and LinkedIn. I'm trying to be more active on LinkedIn. So this is a great place for consultants, I think. I'm non-profit alike. Yeah, I think so too. So connect with me. Definitely take the quiz. It's super fun. And like I said, I have more goodies coming out as we get ready to open the doors to the academy. All right. Well, Cindy, thank you so much for sharing your expertise and for being here today. Thank you so much. I just want to say one of the things the past few years has done is like really opened up a space for online connections. And I feel like I've met so many incredible people like you and Jess where I wouldn't have known you before. And it's, you know, I've enjoyed getting to know you. So, oh, thank you. And yes, I'm inviting myself to Toronto. Well, that's where a lot of my relatives are. My mom's side of the family's from Toronto. So we go up there a couple times a year. So I'm definitely going to do, we'll do a live podcast together. 100% of them. Well, hey there. I wanted to say thank you for tuning into my show and for listening all the way to the end. If you really enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app and you'll get new episodes downloaded as soon as they come out. I would love if you left me a rating or a review because this tells other people that my podcast is worth listening to. And then me and my guests can reach even more earbuds and create even more impact. So that's pretty much it. I'll be back soon with a brand new episode. But until then, you can find me on Instagram at Julia Campbell 7.7. Keep changing the world, you non-profit unicorn. You You . .