93: [client success] Robin Engle on Building a Major Gifts Offer that Funds Movements (Fractional to Scalable Series #7)

Are you a consultant struggling to balance running a for-profit business while serving your nonprofit clients? Do you find it challenging to set boundaries with clients boldly share your own thought leadership, handle invocating, maintain efficient systems, and know when you can afford to hire? You are not alone, my friend. Welcome to the Biz of Nonprofit Consultants Podcast. I'm your host, Natalie Eckdall. As a former management consultant with an MBA and ten years of experience coaching women entrepreneurs, I understand the unique challenges that nonprofit consultants face. You must adapt to different organizational cultures, be mindful of multiple stakeholders, including the board of directors, and understand funding sources while serving the nonprofit's mission. However, you can't let your desire to move the mission forward keep you from running a profitable business. That's why I'm passionate about helping you build an enduring business, one that is enjoyable, profitable, and sustainable. Whether you're a team of one or a consulting firm employing other consultants and staff, I want to be part of the domino effect of helping you stabilize and grow your business, serve more clients at a higher level, and create more positive change in this world. I'm excited to share my expertise on strategy, operations, team, positioning, visibility, mindset, and client boundaries with you. Let's take your consultancy to the next level while protecting your time and building a future for you and generations to come, all while doing meaningful work. Let's make this world a better place together. Robin Ingl, welcome to the podcast. Hi Natalie, it's great to be here. I am so excited to have this conversation with you because you have had the most interesting and fast-paced journey of, you know, I've worked with a lot of different clients and you had a lot of things in place before we met, but then you've quickly implemented a lot of things. And I thought it would work really well to hear your story and your journey in this series, this fractional, disgivable series. So thank you for agreeing to join me on air. You're so welcome. You have helped me move at the pace I've been able to move and it's been a lot of fun. Thank you. I'd love to start all of my calls with clients and anyone I'm interviewing by asking, where did you grow up and what were you like as a kid? I grew up in South Seattle, which is an awesome place to grow up. And I grew up with a family that was really politically active. In particular, my grandmother was an early generation environmentalist. She was our matriarch, our leader in the family. And she is a big part of my personal story and my inspiration. And a lot of folks have shared there's interesting commonalities, but as a little girl, I love to read. I was pretty introverted. Maybe a little bit of a late bloomer like state a kid a little bit longer than some people do. I didn't feel the need to be very cool for a long time in my life, which I appreciate. For all I had a really great childhood at a big close family. Oh, that's so fun. And I'm amazed about your grandmother and her inspiration and actually how it's impacted where your business is now. Do you consider yourself an introvert now or an extrovert? Yeah, I do not consider myself an introvert anymore at all. I'm absolutely an extrovert. And there was a big shift for me. As a teenager, I really came into my own voice. I loved being involved politically. I was the editor of the school newspaper. I was on the Youth Council. I liked debating. I have very strong opinions. I definitely voice. And I would also say I was one of those kids who got great grades. The teachers liked, honor, role and all that. But Natalie, I was also, I had an adventurous and rebellious streak. I did not want to be only the smart girl. And I had a lot of fun. I got into some trouble. I experimented. I was actually a punk rock kid. You might not know that now. So, yeah, I wouldn't guess unless you told me. Right. And I hung out with artists and folks in bands. I often hung out with their young people who had less class privilege and maybe less stable environments that they grew up in. Yeah. And actually, I think a lot of that connects to my morals and beliefs. I am not into rules or authority for its own sake because rules can be unjust and authority can be wrong. And then as I went to young adulthood in college, I also had some experiences that really shaped me. And in college, I was diagnosed with acronic disease that I'll have for the rest of my life. Fortunately, I feel really healthy right now. My father was diagnosed and died of cancer. And my brother struggled for many years with addiction. He was involved in the criminal justice system. At one point, he was homeless and he had an overdose and a brain injury. He has had an amazing recovery. He is sober for years. He's an amazing uncle and he gets to be that now because of what he's accomplished. And those are just a few examples, but all those things are connected for me because I've been able to see how politics impacts my life. All those things are political to me. I've fought cancer-causing, polluting industries like the fossil fuel industry. I've worked on housing first policies that benefit people like my brother. I have been involved with organizations fighting for medical and family leave, which I've benefited from with both my kids. And when I got sick and couldn't work. And the list could go on because to me, it's all connected from racial justice, gender justice to immigrant rights and my core motivation is to create the world that I want to live in and that I want everyone to live in. I love hearing how that's all connected. I knew a few parts of those parts, but to hear it all together. I think it will make a lot of sense for where you have focused your passions and into the work that you're doing now. I'm curious. I would love to hear when you decided to start consulting. If you could take us from like in, you know, like a few minutes of like deciding to become a consultant to when we started working together, which was last November, I think was our first call. I would love to hear a little bit about that journey. When I started consulting, my vision was really to support causes I cared about, to have more agency and self-determination and to make good money, you know, better money than I'd made in house, plus some family flexibility. Right now I have a two year old and a four year old, so life is pretty weird, wild and wonderful. Yeah. And exhausting. It's wonderful. Yes, exhausting and wonderful is exactly right. My spouse and I are also a dual breadwinner household where both of our incomes really matter. And when I started off subcontracting, plus some of my own clients was great. It helped me get a really quick start. Immediate income was important. And I also had a great part time job with an incredible organization that's now a client. But my vision was initially more or less like I just need to make a living and have a solo shop. That's what it was. Yeah. And my visions tend to expand as I reach them. And so once that vision became clearly possible and more clients than I could personally take on, we're coming my way, I was like, I'm not going to say no to these amazing organizations that I want to work with. And I started dreaming bigger. It also helped that I had a colleague and a mentor who I was subcontracting with, who was running a nearly a million dollar firm. Okay. Great. Almost at seven figures, right? Yep. Almost at seven figures and seeing people like you doing it is incredible, like proof. And it's also true that I was completely new to ever running a business. And in fact, never in my professional life have I even worked for a for-profit business. I've spent 20 years, you know, and nonprofits. Yes. And so everything was new. And I take learning really seriously. I started joining consultant communities. I started reading books. I started religiously listening to your podcast. And I've listened to every episode. - And what else? - Yeah, it was huge for me. And when I started, I was taking nearly any work. Proposals were custom for each client. And even with that, you start seeing what you know how to do and how that's adding value and the things that work. You start offering them as solutions time and again. And you repeat the things you enjoy and that bring value. So pieces of what I could specialize in were starting to emerge through all that. - Wow. We're recording this about five months since we first had our call. And on that call, you were doing a lot of different, a lot of different things for a lot of different clients. Like the services are on multiple different services. And can you take us back, say to last November and like what were some of the things that you were offering and how has that shifted to what is happening now? I was doing all kinds of things. And because I'm in the messy middle, at some level, I still am doing lots of things. - Lots of things. - You're in a point where you are in a transitioning point. I think the episode that airs a couple before this, at MIT with a one right before it, where you're really like straddling multiple models. Like you're in between two models. And so it's the messy middle. Honestly, the messy middle goes on for some time. You're stuck there for a while and there's multiple phases of it. And that's okay because you can't just stop working for clients that you're under contract with and that you're serving, right? And so we have to like change the focus. So yeah, so maybe if there anything that you're, maybe I should ask, is there anything you're not doing now that you were doing in November? Well, some realizations that I've had, one is that I have spent time creating materials for clients. And some of those are useful, helpful, clients need, things like cases for support. Those are things I'm good at doing because I also have communications background and I have some graphic design support on my team. But I've realized that that's not my deepest skill set. That's not where I can provide the most value long term. So that's work that I do plan on phasing out. I also was delivering and still am delivering a lot of grant work because that's a need that many movement organizations have. That will remain, I believe, some part of my work and I have an amazing grants, a lead consultant who specializes in grants. And the way that I'm moving is I'm pivoting towards major gifts as a specialty. That's what I love to do. That's where my deepest interest is and I see a ton of opportunity for movement orgs in that work. And I will be focusing less on the grants work and letting my amazing lead consultant who specializes in that kind of do his thing. And so those clients that need that work. Yes, and you two have worked together previously like in a previous, in a previous employer, is that right? Am I remembering right? We worked in house, we loved it. And it was just natural that when he left that job that we had both worked at, that we would work together. And he's been a huge part of enabling me to get where I am right now and build the firm to where it is. I remember as I reflect back on our very first call, one, you knew a lot about your business and I think you're very self-aware as well and you have such a passion for movement organization. And so I feel like in that call, it did go quite fast in terms of us, we made some big decisions. So sometimes on that call will, and that's my 90 minute intensive, we will know what we're gonna start testing. But I feel like on your call, it was pretty clear that there was demand and we could both specialize by the work you're doing. So choosing to focus on major gifts and also niche by sector and focus on movement organizations. And in that call, we weren't sure if I was asking you, is that how your clients identify themselves? Do they call themselves movement organizations? And how have you found, 'cause I think you've been testing out that language, how has that, is that what you're using publicly and how is that working for you? - Yeah, that's a great question and that's something I continue to cycle around a little bit and hope to better understand. But organizations often refer to themselves as advocacy or maybe sometimes policy organizations. - Right. - And or progressive organizations sometimes. So I think the common thread is we're talking about organizations that are using organizing advocacy elections, systemic change to create the world we all wanna live in. They often have multiple entities like a C3, C4 or a pack. And I find that the groups that can gain the most value from my work are often between maybe 750,000 and a million dollars up to five million or so in terms of their budget. They're also a little bit in the messy middle. - Oh yes, they are. - As our profits go. - They are, absolutely. - Yeah, which is why I often steer clients like pass that one million, preferably two million. It doesn't mean that you can't work with people smaller than that. But once an organization gets to like a two million plus budget, there's just a lot more flexibility in terms and less like price sensitivity and like, well, this has to deliver within this time or we can't do it. So that's why I like those kind of mid-level type clients for my clients. Let's go back to when you started working on your, what I call a scalable offer, which is your major gifts offer. I'd love to hear some of the things that you went through in that process to kind of decide what to offer. And I mean, even in that first call, we were talking about some different ways you could offer it, like different levels of it. And I remember I encouraged you to kind of go towards that, the offer you wanted, like sell the higher level offer that you want to because there were like three levels because that would lead to a client that could be ongoing. But then you did a lot of work in terms of like mapping it out and thinking how you could possibly systematize it. I would love to hear some of your process on that maybe I didn't see happening. Well, I would start with, as I was working with movement orgs, I saw a really big gap emerge time and again, where folks just weren't meeting one-on-one with individual donors and making powerful asks. And it's a huge missed opportunity because donors will give oftentimes 10 times more as an intentional gift than they'll give with an impulse gift. An impulse gift is if someone gave you, say, $250. Over the phone to an email, to a mailer, maybe even at an event, they didn't think long and hard about that. They love what you do, they want to support it, gift made. Yes. But if you sit down with someone, you get to know them, you tell the story, it's very likely that that person that gave you $250 as an impulse gift could give you $2,500. So that is one of the highest return on investment ways to raise money. And it works for organizations that have C3, C4s, even packs. There are no deliverables, there are no restrictions. We can use them in ways that have the biggest impact. And I saw the gap happening really because organizations and leaders have never been trained on how to have a major gift meeting. We are out there winging it. Yes. Yes. And not only that, they don't have clear, concise stories to share and ask framework. They don't have the systems or the outreach tactics that all come together to create momentum. And I knew that's work that I deeply know how to do from my time as a major gifts officer, from my years as a development director. And it was work where I was already doing the parts of it in all of my client engagements. We were working on aspects of that. And what you really taught me and supported me to do in that 90-minute intensive was to put all of these strategies and tactics together in a focused way that could really increase impact versus a customized proposal where we're doing a little bit of this, but we're also doing a little bit of that. And we're doing x, y, and z that just might not have that same impact and that level of focus. And what I did was I worked and built an offer deck. I created a case study that was about a client where we were able to raise $450,000 from major donors through a targeted campaign. I started talking about the work through my blog, my email list, and most importantly, linked in. And I also used linked in direct messages to start conversations. That's a key tool of mine. - Yeah. Yeah, it's been great. And what I have seen is now that I have this level of specificity and a really clear outcome for folks that I'm solving a deep need and a common need. When I get on the phone with somebody and they've already read about this and listen to my content, they get it. They get on the call and they get it. And they understand that this is the skill that they need to take their work and their leadership to the next level. And that it took very little time, as you know, from creating this offer to selling it for the first time. And now we're delivering it. And that's exciting to be delivering it for the first time in some ways. But it's also not the first time because every one of these tactics, I've done this. Yes. It's really incredible. How did you-- I think sometimes people wonder, how do you transition from offering more of a fractional offer or like a retainer offer to this particular offer is a 90-day initial project. It's a high-ticket project. And it could turn into an ongoing retainer afterwards if they choose to help with implementation. Was there anything that you had to do or shift beside your messaging? Is there anything you'd change in how you handle your call, your initial calls with prospective clients, or how you think about the work? Curious about that. Well, you already named that I took the step to shift all my content towards major gifts and towards my scalable offer from my blog to parts of my website, to linked in, and to my email list. And that was not something I was doing before. I was really using my voice more as a generalist. So that's been enormous already in terms of attracting the right folks. And then what I really do is I-- before I even go into a prospect call, I usually have a good idea of what their needs are. Maybe I communicated with them already about major gifts work and the accelerator. And then I know we're going to talk about the accelerator on the call. Yes. I also have an intake form before folks-- when folks schedule a prospect call with me where I ask key information, what are your needs, what are your gaps, what's your budget? And if grants is their need, I see that, and I know that. And I know that we're probably going to talk about working with Ari. Yes. And working with my amazing lead consultant who specializes in that kind of work. Yes. So right now I'm still in that space. And I might be for the long term or for a long time of still wanting to offer some other options. And it's great to be able to do that, but also to be most focused on heading in that major gifts direction, specializing towards that work, and really focusing on my communications on the major gifts accelerator. It's really important what you shared, which is changing your messaging publicly and in your private conversations in when you're doing networking conversations and then what you're posting in the different plate, whether you're only using LinkedIn or whether you have a blog or a newsletter in addition, but specifically LinkedIn, because that is like popping up for people. And I also love that you're adding the DM strategy, which I think that you are leveraging from your work with Sarah Royfe as well, right? And she's been on the podcast. I'll link to her episode where she talks about using LinkedIn DMs to start conversations. And she teaches it in a way that is, I feel it's just so natural. There's really like a natural conversation. It's like, hey, do you want to buy this? Hey, do you need a major gift? A major gift strategy? It's about starting a conversation that would naturally lead. That may or may not naturally lead to working together. So I love that you've implemented her strategies as well. That's been huge for me before consulting. I almost never used LinkedIn. I was never on that platform. I had even negative thoughts about it. It was not really a place I wanted to be. And since starting to consult, I've seen the incredible value that it can bring to my business. And Sarah Royfe is someone who helped me-- there's an analogy, folks call it Climbing Cringe Mountain. Which is what you need to do to start using any social media. You have to climb up this mountain and you're just cringing the whole time. And you're like, I don't know. But you get to the other side. You climb the mountain successfully. And it is the land of-- maybe it's the land of milk and honey. But it's great. You see the value. You get more comfortable. And I'm really happy that that has happened because it's a hugely important source. Not only of work, but I've been able to connect with just so many amazing people, regardless of the outcome, whether we ever work together. I just love connecting with people who share my values and are in this movement with me. That's a big part of why I'm in this movement is because I get to have relationships with incredible people who want to build the same kind of world that I do. And that's something that I get out of my LinkedIn usage. I'm really glad that you shared that you moved from speaking more in a generalist way to honing in on really two things, like movements. In general, you're talking a lot about that, but also major gifts. So both and both together. Sometimes I hear people when they're thinking about making that shift, they'll say, well, will my current client say, if I make this shift or if I change my website? And I always say, well, first of all, your current clients are probably not looking at your website anymore. So they're not like, let me look at my consultant's website today. It's rare that you go back to it. But even if they did, they will see what you're doing, but it doesn't have to change. They make notice or they may not. What you're posting on LinkedIn, they may or may not notice. And if they do, and it's different from what the current work you're doing, it doesn't change your current project. And in some cases, you might keep one or two of those favorite clients ongoing. I had a former client and she called them her darlings. She's like, well, what am I going to do with my darlings? I can't let go of my darlings. And I was like, that's OK. As you shift, you don't have to let go of them. But you may find over time that it doesn't really make sense if everything else is in this one space that you keep working with your darlings. And I personally have a few of my darlings. I don't usually share this publicly, but I have a couple clients that are in the for-profit space. I used to work with consultants of all types before I chose in 2024 to only work with nonprofit consultants. But I just helped one client who's negotiating a huge, huge project. And she has a corporate client. So it's just it's different. But also there's some similarities, right? So were you worried at all about your current clients, how they would be impacted by some of the shifts you were making or did it feel like it was natural to what you'd already been talking about? I wasn't worried about current clients. And as you said, I have had no ill effects. No one has wondered or-- just like you said, they're focused on the work we're doing together and happy with that work. And they're not checking for me, right? They're not thinking about it that deeply. So and if anything, I've heard, I think, more positivity about how focused I am. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, absolutely. And I get a lot of folks saying I love that post, right? Or I love what you're doing on LinkedIn. Yes. I think what I was initially worried about is not being able to serve organizations that come to me that I love and that I want to work with who need, say, the grant work or already have strong major gifts programs that's not their need. And right now, I still have powerful ways to serve them and work with them. And that is great. And that could be a part of my business, although not the primary way I'm serving forever or for a while. And I'm comfortable with where things are now and not having to know everything about the future. Wow, that's great. And that's a hard place to be, to just let things unfold. I've been impressed with the amount of momentum you have in your business. And I think that is due to the visibility activities that you've been doing and also the number of conversations you have in general and also that you enjoy having conversations. And I think that that you've also gone to a lot of local events and events of your clients. I think that that's something you said in our mastermind is that you found it to be really powerful to do to be out in your community. I have found it really powerful when you have a niche like mine that's not just working with every nonprofit. I mostly don't work with service-based nonprofits. I mostly don't work with, you know, organizations that have maybe or revenue models. And those are a lot of organizations. And so I do go to some generalist, non-profit events like the Association of Fundraising Professionals as an example. I went to and found a client there and that was a good experience. But where my people tend to be is movement-oriented spaces. Spaces where we are in progressive community broadly together. That ends up being in many ways a small community, even in a city like Seattle that's big and that has a big progressive community. And so oftentimes it's better for me to be in those spaces rather than the generalist spaces. And that it's amazing that that can look like my clients' events because then I show up, I'm doing double duty, I'm getting to connect with my clients, they see me there, I'm supporting, I'm even working, right? I'm doing jobs there. Sure. And I'm contributing to it. And I get to see how it's going and improve it and give feedback. And I get to make connections with these incredible other leaders that I absolutely want to work with. Yeah, they're supporting one another and they care about similar causes. So that makes a lot of sense. It also makes a lot of sense that the people that are active are you're seeing again and again right? They're out there. So there are people who have same views and same passions, but they're not being out there and active, right? It's maybe 20%. If we use 80/20 roll, 20% of the people are doing 80% of the out there and doing the activities and the things that are that you're connecting with. It works super well for me because you know a few weekends ago I went to No Kings Day, a big protest. Yes. I would have gone to No Kings Day regardless. Yes. But you know what, this time I got to go to No Kings Day and I talked to a prospective client while I was there because they were tabling. So it's just fits so well into what I already want to do with the communities I already want to be in. And that feels really good. That oftentimes feels better to me than a kind of a political generalist space. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, we haven't shared this yet, but you are in my impact collective mastermind program which includes 101 coaching. But I would love to hear both if there, if you wouldn't mind sharing what the biggest impact has been for you working with me 101 and also being part of the mastermind. Well, I'll start with working with you one on one because it's really been so impactful. One is I have a much deeper and clearer vision, right? I now have a pod bottle in my mind that I have working towards. Yes, the team model that we're building out. Yes. A team model that we're building out. I have someone who is not only cheering me on, but is also telling me, yes, or sometimes know, about things that I'm thinking deeply about and could be sitting alone with. But instead I get to talk about it with you. That helps me move a lot faster, right? If I just hear yes from you, then I'm going to do it. I'd be careful what I say yes to because I know you're going to do it. I will do it now. So I'm careful with my clients that are some people just are implement fast. And you are one of them. You're just going to naturally implement fast. And somebody will tell me whatever you tell me to do, I'm going to do. And when I hear about I'm like, I am going to be a little extra careful about what I what I encourage you to do, because you're going to do it. And I just from a coaching perspective, that is fantastic. But I love working with all different types of people. So I would not be as good of an implementer as you are if you were my coach. I was just talking to my daughter. She's home for the weekend visiting from Boston. And I was telling her I was saying I was going to do this interview. My client, she's just implemented things so fast. And I said, if I said you would do the same thing with your coach and we talked about a little bit, she's like, oh yeah, if I liked my coach and I trusted them, if they told me to do something, I do it. So I appreciate that about you. Well, it's I would say too, though, that I don't always just, I don't blindly trust authority. Right? And so no, you don't. And I like that too. Yeah, the things that you're that we're talking about, they just make sense. So if it just makes sense and I know in my gut that I agree that Natalie's right, I'm going to do it. And the scalable offer concept has been huge. I don't I absolutely don't think that I would have created that. Had we not worked together. And then the mastermind, one thing that's exciting to me is I'm one of the folks in there who is earliest in my consulting career, maybe not the earliest. I'm not alone there, but earlier. And when I joined, I was one of the folks who was at, you know, qualifying for the revenue level that you serve. But you know, just kind of right there. And I consider that a privilege because I'm learning from folks who have already gone or are going where I want to be. I have a lot to offer, but I'm not the furthest along or the smartest in the room. And I'm getting to work with brilliant, generous people who have a vision for their business like I do. Most consultants that I interact with are solo, which can be a great choice. They don't dream of building a firm. But getting to work with folks who do have that dream. We get to learn from each other. And in particular, I get to see what's possible from people who are one or two steps ahead of me. I appreciate you sharing that. Thank you. First of all, for your compliments for working with me. I am so honored. Thank you so much. And I hear that from a lot of people that are in the group and are having in the group that the benefit of seeing people that are like have done something before you or watching them go through something and then maybe six months later you go through it and you're like, oh, I didn't know I was going to be here too. And now here I am. But even from my clients that are at the top level of revenue, they share with me that they are, sometimes they are helping and in teaching or in sharing, it helps them with where they are now or where they end like to see where they've come. But also everybody in the group has a career behind them. So there are so many experiences. One of the other clients in the room, she's been giving great advice on interviewing because she has interviewed a lot of people and built a team within an organization, a large team. And so her ideas and thoughts around she shared like specific interview questions that she asked that we were just all blown away. And I'm like, can I document that and make it and share that with the group? And she's like, of course. So I think that sometimes people come in and they're like, oh, I need to make sure that if I'm at this level, will people that are earlier than me be able to give anything back? And the truth is, from my perspective, when I look at the program over the course of a year or two years, that you can see how everybody is adding value, no matter if they're at 200K or 400K or 800K or a million, there is that value being transferred in different ways. So it's fun for me to watch how that occurs in the group. I agree with that. And you know, the thing about consultants is we love to give advice, right? Absolutely. Yes, it's so fun. And now with AI, some people are implementing AI faster and some people are not using it much and some people are, we have all these different levels of AI usage in the group too. So I think that's been really fun to see that knowledge transfer happening as well. Everything with AI is moving so fast and it's been such a valuable tool for me to use in a values aligned way within my business. And I just see how it's allowing me to create so much more for my clients. And I'm still on a learning journey. I've only been using AI really for a year and a half, but it is remarkable. And really appreciating continuing to learn. And it's going to be, it's going to be a heck of a journey with that. We talk about AI a lot in my house probably more than I want to because my husband is a software architect. And so he is coding with AI. And he says he is able to do work that used to take three months sometimes in a few days, sometimes in a day. So we talk about it a lot, although we're using it very differently. But it's fun to have that conversation and keep it going. And yeah, it is mind boggling. how much it's going to change all of our work and our children's work too. Like I am, I'm so like have my eye on because my one son is going to be a freshman in high school and I'm just like the career seem maybe thinking I have maybe a little different in four years. Really getting that through. It's big. That's real. And there's a lot of scary things about it that I'm scared about too. And then as a small business owner, it is absolutely part of how I've been able to move as fast as I have been able to. It's accelerating me for sure. It definitely is. I agree with that. That's amazing. Well, one other question about choosing to join and invest in a program like this. As you said, you were kind of on the lower end of the requirements to join the group. And so in some sense, it's a bigger investment for you. How did you make the decision? And I know you're very good with your money. We've talked about money a bit. And I know that you're careful with what you choose to invest in personally and professionally. Was there anything that that was part of your decision making process you can share? And how did you decide to? I feel like it's always a leap of faith. No matter what income level you're at. I would say there were a couple pieces of my decision making. One is I had been consuming everything already. Right? I'd listened to all the podcasts. I had I haven't read your book yet. So that's one thing I need to do next. But everything that was available to me, I was listening and it just made sense. It all made sense. I could see that you were speaking directly to me. And so that all clicked. And it was a big investment. It represented almost 10% of my gross revenue when I made that decision. That's something we even talked about on the call. But a core part of my decision has been I would love to make this investment in my learning and my journey now because imagine how much faster I'll go, how many fewer mistakes I'll make along the way. And how because I am earlier in creating and setting up my business, I have a lot less to undo or fix or correct. I don't need to I don't need to tear it all down and rebuild. Right? It's true. It's true. It's true. And and I saw some of that too. Why not get as close as I can to doing it right from the get go and right away rather than waiting five years or 10 years to start building the kind of business that I know I can. And I can say that you have already helped me make decisions that have vastly accelerated my journey and also prevented a couple of pretty major mistakes that I could have made that I think could have been pretty rough on my day-to-day reality and just not the right decision for my business. You really helped me get in my gut on a couple of key items and do the right thing. So it's been really valuable as an investment. That is something I sometimes don't think I share enough. I appreciate you sharing that like having to untangle things because sometimes I come into a business and I'm like, okay, I can work with anything like and I love the puzzle of any new business I come into. And then I love this phase because there's more puzzles that are going to happen. So it's very intellectually exciting for me to work at this level of business. But there is sometimes it's especially when people are involved as people if people come to me and have a really like entrenched team to make those changes where it doesn't make sense to keep certain people long-term can be really challenging if people have long-term like contracts that are harder to get out of with clients that they really don't want to be working with. And really some of the biggest things are I think are when people have a long-term client that's at a low price point making the decision of to let them go. And that's so hard because the relationship is there, but the pool, what it's how it's pulling the business down and all when all the other clients are paying this higher rate. And it can take time and I like, you know, I like to see where the business owner is because it's at the end of the day you're the CEO of your business in life. I'm here supporting you, but your decisions are your decisions. And sometimes people make different decisions than I would recommend and I'm okay with that. I will get on the train track that my whatever track my clients are heading on, I can get on that train and we can figure out where to go from there. I am so amazed with your your ability to systemize things and I think that is also something that has helped you in a couple ways. It's helped you to create this offer and then to be able to deliver it in a in a fast timeline. But also to train your team and you've already, you know, you have two members you've worked with and you are really able to communicate how you want things done and document things and you know, that's not everybody's strength. So sometimes people have to outsource all of that and pay someone to help them get this out of my head and what should the SOPB and how would I put this together? It can be it can be harder for some people, but that's a natural gifting you have. And so that's been really fun to watch and I know that you've been sharing and you've been sharing that with a group. I think you've been sharing your way of packaging things and systemizing things and also your use of AI. You've been sharing that into the group and I know from hearing from others how that's been really valued. Yeah and you know these I do love a great system. I think I think in part because so many people keep things as I've heard from many a busy ED on the dome, right? Just in your head. Yes. And that's not my strength. I can't remember all that Natalie. Yes. I need a system and systems are how I track everything and that's something I love to bring to my clients because just like I can't keep all my client prospect leads and what I need to do next. They can't live off the dome. Nope. I won't remember and be able to move it that way. We can't keep our major donor relationships off the dome either. So systems are huge for me. And I do think a lot of the skills and tactics that I teach my clients around having an amazing pipeline of major donors and creating action and movement are skills that I can put to use every day in my business. And it's fun. What's next in your business? What do you see happening kind of next? A couple of exciting things I am right now hiring an executive assistant. This is my first W2 role. I do have consultant team members, you know, who are subcontracting with me. Yes. But this is my first W2 role. It's also my first down level role that will be directly supporting me. And I read the great book, Buy Back Your Time. Yes. I don't want to tell. I don't want to read that because it just helps with the mindset around hiring and ideas on different things that you can let go of. It really helped because one of my strengths for so many years has been my ability to get stuff done on my own and move things. And that strength can become a weakness when you rely on it too long. And I started realizing that. So now I'm making that shift in hiring an executive assistant and operations lead who is going to be foundational in building a business. And I'm also looking forward to hiring my first full-time lead consultant. And I made the decision to hire local as well. And with some folks where we can be primarily remote but also be in real physical spaces together and in community together because I value that. So that's really exciting to see how that will take place and take shape. And you know, the biggest thing I'm excited about is really getting amazing results for movement organizations, building major gifts programs. Because when we do this, we win. We create more social change. We just had a big win in Washington state when a number of groups that I've worked with or four in the past were able to win attacks on millionaires. Millionaires income tax that is generating billions of dollars a year. That is going to fund all kinds of amazing things including things like free school lunches for every single kid in Washington state. And those who can afford it are paying for it instead of those who have the least. Now we need to do things like defend that win in the courts and at the ballot box. But that's the kind of change that my clients are creating, that the work that I'm doing is helping to create. And I love a win. It's a tangible win. That's a tangible win, which is so exciting. And I love that it represented a lot of different groups coming together as well. Hard five. because for decades in Washington State, we've had one of the most regressive tax systems, where those who have the least pay the most as a percentage of their income, and because there were so many barriers to passing this that for, again, decades, people believed it wasn't possible, but it became possible, and we seized the moment, and it happened. - Well, that's incredible. - So impressed. - Well, before we leave, is there anything else that I should have asked you that I didn't ask? Is there a question I should have had on my list? - Ooh, that's a great question. What about like, what do I do for fun? - Ooh, that sounds good. What do you do for fun? - All right, so I have a couple of interests that I love. One of them is I'm a personal finance geek, and I'm a part of something called the fire, which is the financial freedom, retire early movement for all you other dorks out there. - And fire people, can fire people. - But I think it's because I've been talking about money for so long, right? When my fundraising work, I really believe in money power. I believe in financial freedom for movements, for women, for folks who are underrepresented, and for myself. And so that's something that I think a lot about how I can be making smart money moves, and really leaning into abundance, and abundance mindset, creating abundance for myself, for my family, for those around me, for my clients. So that's something I love, and I love to nerd out. Another thing that I love, it's a little darker. I am one of those true crime gurlies, and in particular, I am-- - Oh, you are. - There's so many, but in particular, Natalie, I love to hate a serial killer. And we have a lot of serial killers in the Northwest. There's a lot of reasons for that, including pollution. But these people, they're so dark, they're so twisted. Why? How do their minds work? What's going on? It's scary, it's fascinating. We love to see him get caught. And so I'm an avid reader of authors like Anne Rule. And then a final thing I'll say is I love graphic novels. So comic books. - Yes, comic books, but they're not about superheroes. No, no, no, they're about history. They're about personal biographies and real life stories. - I've never seen any of these. Oh, yeah. - Oh, I do want to recommend, I'd be curious about the history one. - So one history graphic novel author, who's incredible, is Joe Sacco, and he writes not only about history, but he's a war journalist. But he does it all through graphic novel form. He's written about Palestine. He's written about Sarajevo. - Wow. - And the brilliance of it, the social political commentary, the depth of his journalism, the artistry, incredible. And I would also say shout out to Barjean Satrapi and Persepolis, which is a really well-known graphic novel about the experience of growing up as a woman in Iran, the Iranian revolution, the regime, right? - And boy. - I'm actually going to buy a few of these. I'm very excited. I have not seen these types of graphic novels. So I did, this is a genre I was not aware of. So I learned something. - Yeah. - There wasn't many things on this episode, but I'm excited to learn about that. That was fun. I love that additional question. I may have to add that as my ending. There we go. - Everybody. - I'm really for fun. I get so into business. I forget the fun. Well, I think business is fun. So me too. And I will not be joining you listening to those serial killer true crime podcasts. Every once in a while, there will be a true crime, or crime that happens that I get, I will like deep dive on. But in general, I get too scared. Like then I am, I'm just too scared. And I don't want to know all these things. It just freaks me out. I'm too sensitive. - That's understandable. Because in as dark, there are some sick people. But you know, some-- - You know Tiffany on my team loves the true crime podcast. Did you chat with her at all on the last chat? Okay, next to treat. You will, yeah, she's like a pop culture. And I was everything pop culture. And then she loves her true crime. And I think she falls asleep watching Dateline. And we did connect about our mutual Taylor Swift fandom as well. There you go. - She has a lot of things. She's a strong fact finder. So she knows a lot of things about many subjects. So-- - Yeah, she does. - Yeah. So whenever any crime is happening, I'll be like, what do you know? What's the latest? (laughs) Keep me, give me the high level executive summary. I need to know on this. And then if I want to know more, where do I go? And she sends me. So there we go. - Well, this was fantastic, Robin. Thank you so much for sharing about your journey thus far. So much more to come. And I am excited to be part of this with you. Where's the best way for people to connect with you? - The best way to connect with me, if you are especially a social justice leader, like an executive director, a development director, who is working on advocacy and systemic change, or if you're a consultant and you're working with those kind of organizations and they need to raise more money, then I definitely want to connect. I want to help you power your movement. And you can read about us at abundancecatalyst.org and on linkedin. Robin-Engle, R-O-B-I-N-E-N-G-L-E. And I also invite you to join my email list. Most fundraising email list weren't built for social justice and advocacy organizations. Mine was and you'll get some amazing tips, tricks, have some great conversations about how to build money power for your movement. - I love your newsletter, I get it. So yes, and definitely, I think a great thing for people to do if they know someone else in your space is to share your linkedin. So people can follow you on linkedin. And I will put all those links in the show notes below so people can just click right on them and find whichever spot interests them. And thank you, Robin. I am so grateful for your time and for you sharing. And I know it's gonna help a lot of people. - Thanks Natalie, it's so fun being here and being a part of your network. (upbeat music) - I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Bizz of Nonprofit Consultants. After working with Nonprofit Consultants over the last decade, I've noticed a few things that often get overlooked. May I send you my complimentary guide to the five mistakes, even the smartest nonprofit consultants make. You get each mistake and I have mistakes in quotes here. So you get each mistake revealed in the very first email. And then I send you an email over the next five days where I expand on each topic. Each missive also shares ideas and resources on how to solve that issue in your business. To get access to this, go to nattalymba.com/today. 5, spell out F-I-V-E, nattalymba.com/5. My team thinks I am oversharing, but I want you to have this information. Again, go to nattalymba.com/5. Now let's go make an impact.