Jeffrey R. Wilcox, President and Chief Learning Curator of Third Sector Company, and Nancy Bacon of Nancy Bacon Consulting—provide a timely conversation on interim leadership as a smart business move for nonprofits.

Nancy shares the findings from their recently completed report on Interim Leadership and how it was built through deep listening—town halls, surveys, and focus groups with interim experts across North America—to capture what the field is becoming. The result: a sector-wide definition that positions interim leadership as an intentional, mission-centered intervention at a pivotal moment—built to stabilize operations, guide people through change, and set up the next leader for success.

Jeffrey makes the business case with unmistakable clarity: “Interim is an investment. It is not an expense.” Rather than a temporary human resource fix, the work addresses a major risk facing nonprofits: executive attrition and leadership transitions that aren’t planned. Boards that treat a transition like an emergency hire often trade speed for stability—then pay for it later in culture strain, staff churn, and stalled momentum.

The conversation lifts the role of language in board decision-making. Both guests emphasize that clear expectations reduce fear and prevent “accidental interims” created by rushed succession. Jeffrey shares a simple framework interims consistently bring: clarity, capacity, and confidence—so boards can move forward with shared reality instead of conflicting perceptions.

Finally, the episode widens the lens: interim leadership is expanding beyond coastal hubs, accelerated by COVID-era shifts and virtual capacity, allowing experienced leaders to support rural and smaller communities that need strong nonprofit operations the most.

If your organization is thinking about succession—or avoiding it—this conversation offers a practical, mission-forward way to treat leadership change as a moment to strengthen the business engine behind the mission.

#TheNonprofitShow #NonprofitManagement #SuccessionPlanning

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Cohosts Julia C. Patrick and Tony Beall tackle a fundraising trap that quietly keeps nonprofits stressed and stuck: betting everything on one revenue source. They call it “The Egg or the Basket”—and the message is clear: your mission can’t ride on a single lane of funding.

Tony frames revenue diversification in plain business terms: build multiple revenue streams that fit your mission, your market, and your organization’s maturity. If one stream slows down or disappears, you’re not forced into panic-mode program cuts. Julia reinforces that there’s no one-size-fits-all formula; the mix should shift based on life cycle, community behavior, and capacity.

They walk through a sample revenue mix and why it often surprises teams. Individual giving typically sits as the largest slice, and Tony points listeners to Giving USA as a useful reference point for understanding how national trends compare to your own results. Grants, while important, can be unpredictable—especially for newer organizations. Tony offers a reality check for early-stage nonprofits: many funders want proof of concept, years of services delivered, and sometimes matching funds before larger awards are on the table.

Then they move into earned revenue and enterprise conversations—where boards may push for a café, thrift store, gallery, or other venture. Julia notes these choices come with real accounting and cost structures that must be managed like a business line, not a side hobby.

Finally, they bring it home with practical governance tools: reporting, dashboards, benchmarking, and scenario planning so teams can pivot intentionally. As Tony puts it, “You need good data to help you understand how to diversify your revenue stream and what that mix should look like.” And Julia warns against board-driven wish lists that development teams are told to execute after the fact: “That’s just…a recipe for disaster.”

#NonprofitFundraising #RevenueStrategy #TheNonprofitShow

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Our national co-hosts and amazing guests discuss management, money and missions of nonprofits!
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AI isn’t a “someday” conversation for nonprofits anymore it’s a right-now operational decision with governance, risk, and staff behavior at the center. Joshua Peskay, Co-Founder of Meet the Moment, joined Julia C. Patrick to talk about the practical reality nonprofits are facing: AI adoption is already happening inside your organization whether leadership has planned for it or not.

Joshua frames the moment with a clear warning and a workable path forward. Too many nonprofits, he says, are bumping into “governance immaturity” the missing pieces that turn AI from a productivity boost into a liability. Think policies, staff learning, data classification and handling, and vendor risk review. Instead of debating whether AI is allowed, Joshua urges leaders to start by accepting the current state and then managing it with intention. As he puts it, “Artificial intelligence is happening and it is happening incredibly fast… the water is coming down the mountain.”

The duo reinforce what many executives have observed: when organizations ban AI, staff still use it they just do it quietly, creating silos and exposure. Joshua connects that to a familiar cybersecurity pattern: shadow IT. People work around constraints to get the job done, especially in a sector that’s under-resourced, remote, and mission-urgent.

The forward-looking takeaway is refreshingly actionable: start with the AI tools already inside your protected environment. If your nonprofit runs on Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, use Copilot, Gemini, or NotebookLM as your baseline so staff can work with guardrails. For anything outside that ecosystem, require a business case and a review process. Then, build a learning culture where staff share what’s working, what’s failing, and what’s safe.

Joshua also brings urgency from the risk landscape, noting nonprofits are attractive targets because of sensitive data and typically weaker security.

00:00:00 Welcome and why AI is the topic right now
00:01:26 What Meet the Moment does for nonprofits
00:03:20 The real issue governance maturity and policies
00:05:04 When nonprofits ban AI staff use it anyway
00:06:08 The water down the mountain analogy
00:07:53 Why nonprofit community learning matters
00:11:23 The square wheel paradox and making time to learn
00:13:32 Readiness vs reality and starting from current state
00:15:17 Use the AI already in your protected workspace
00:18:39 Shadow IT and work from home risk
00:21:42 Why nonprofits are attractive cyber targets
00:24:52 Donor spreadsheets and why “hope is not a strategy”

#TheNonprofitShow #NonprofitManagement #AIgovernance

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Our national co-hosts and amazing guests discuss management, money and missions of nonprofits!
12:30pm ET 11:30am CT 10:30am MT 9:30am PT

Send us your ideas for Show Guests or Topics: HelpDesk@AmericanNonprofitAcademy.com
Visit us on the web:The Nonprofit Show