Nonprofit Power Podcast

Hosted by Kath Patrick

Business Education

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Episodes

163

Latest episode

Oct 2026

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EN-US

About the show

If you’re a progressive nonprofit leader who wants to build powerful influence with the money and policy decisionmakers in your world, but aren’t happy with your progress, help has arrived! Host Kath Patrick has been teaching and coaching leaders on these vital skills for 25+ years, and now she shares her secrets for advocacy success with you every week.

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60 recent

October 18, 2026Episode 16320 min

How Your Champions May Be Screwing Up Your Messaging and What To Do About It

It's time we talk about a really common problem that actually has a simple solution, but that Nonprofit leaders are often very nervous about trying to address. And that's when your champions are getting your messaging wrong. You spend a lot of time and effort getting your messaging dialed in so that it is clear and compelling around all aspects of the true value of the work that you do. And then a champion who you otherwise love goes out and gets a key piece of messaging wrong. And suddenly, your message is muddied, and the clarity around the extremely high value that your stuff is worth starts to be diminished. I'm sure I don't have to explain to you why that's a problem. That said, Nonprofit leaders often tell me that they are very uncomfortable and nervous about correcting a champion. But if we want our champions to be as effective as possible on our behalf, we’ve got to help them get it right. And that means correcting them and getting them to use the right messaging. The good news is there’s away to do that that will have them thanking you for the correction. In this episode, we reveal: The most common ways champions will get your messaging wrong The three things we have to do to get the champion to use the right messaging How to correct the champion in a way that will make them thank you for it Two ways to get the champion’s staff to reinforce your preferred messaging How to help the champion create new messaging “habits” that stick If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders. And I’d be grateful if you would leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, which will help even more people find out about this podcast. Thanks!

October 3, 2026Episode 16222 min

How to Help Your Clients Make Sure Their Vote Counts

We're a little more than 30 days out from the 2026 elections, and I don't have to tell you there's a lot at stake up and down the ballot. From Congressional and Senate races to state legislatures, and on down to city council, county board and school board races. All of them matter. And all of them have the potential to have a big impact on the wellbeing of your clients and their families. Hopefully, most of your eligible clients are already registered to vote, perhaps with your help. Yay! Registration deadlines are about to close in a number of states, but there may still be time to register where you live. So double check your deadlines and do everything you can to get your clients registered in the time left. But now it's time to focus on helping your clients make a plan to vote so they can be assured of their vote counting. This is especially important in the current climate, where there are so many efforts underway to undermine and suppress our clients' voting rights. In this episode, we break down everything you need to know to help your clients make sure their vote gets counted: The three key ingredients to a successful plan to vote The most helpful and effective questions to ask your client about their plan to vote Six essential pieces of information your clients need to make sure their vote counts How to address voter suppression efforts aimed at your clients How to help clients who want to vote on Election Day instead of voting early A one-stop, easy-to-use resource to help you and your clients with their plan Link to one-stop voter resource: BallotReady.org If you found value in this episode, please share it with other Nonprofit leaders. And I'd be grateful if you'd leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, so even more people can find out about the show. Thanks!

September 10, 2026Episode 16134 min

Five Things You Need to Know About Funding for Advocacy Work

If you’ve ever said to yourself, “If only I had a paid advocacy person/team, everything would be great,” you’re in good company. But you might be surprised by the path you need to take to get there. It’s not as intuitive as it might seem, and there are some common mistakes that often block that path. Here’s the thing. Even if a funder dropped a ton of money on you today to go do advocacy work, and you went out and hired a policy and advocacy staffperson. We can't just say to that person, “go do advocacy. Get the decisionmakers excited about investing in our work and creating policies that will benefit the people we serve.” It doesn't work that way. There's really no scenario in which you can hire the advocacy people, turn them loose and then the rest of us can just get back what we do every day. I get it. We all go there from time to time. When we're feeling overwhelmed and we're feeling like, ah, how do we fit advocacy and strategic relationship building into all the other work that we have to do? It is tempting to say things like, gosh, if I only had an advocacy person or an advocacy staff, that would be so much better. And it could be. But only with the right combination of factors in place. So let’s talk about how we can actually prepare and set ourselves up for the day when we do get to have those dedicated paid positions that can take a chunk of the work and really focus on it. And take out advocacy game to the next level. In this episode, we share: The three things you must already have in order for paid advocacy staff to succeed What funders look for when deciding whether to invest in your advocacy work The biggest mistake that will block you from getting funding to do advocacy work The most strategic (and practical) way to begin growing your advocacy capacity right now Unexpected benefits of growing the advocacy capacity of your existing staff If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders. And I’d be grateful if you would leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, which will help even more people find out about this podcast. Thanks!

September 4, 2026Episode 16014 min

The Biggest Mistakes that Keep Decisionmakers from Valuing Your Expertise

I had a conversation with a client recently that surprised me. Then I thought about it some more and I realized it was something that a lot of nonprofit leaders struggle with. It's just that this client was experiencing a version of the problem that was a bit unusual. This client is a CEO who has decades of experience and accumulated wisdom and perspective. But one day, this CEO shared with me that although she was considered a big expert in her previous field, she didn't have the same expert reputation in her current field. And therefore, she didn't feel like she could claim expertise at all in that field. She was working backwards from the fact that over a span of 20 years, she had built this really strong reputation as a huge expert in her previous field. And then reducing that to the conclusion that it takes 20 years to build the knowledge, the reputation the relationships, etc. And that is patently not true. But her biggest mistake was she made the erroneous assumption that the only reason her expertise in that prior field was valued was because of those 20 years of investment. And that anything less was not enough. This is a really insidious form of self-limiting thinking. A lot of leaders may not have anywhere near 20 years of expertise. And yet some of them are very successfully claiming the expertise they do have and getting great results from decisionmakers because of that. Others are operating from the same self-doubting and self-limiting thinking as my client of, "I don't have enough (fill in the blank) yet, so I can't claim I'm an expert." My client was taking herself out of the game before she even started. The stories she was telling herself led her to avoid claiming the expertise she already has. And that meant she wasn’t sharing her expert analysis and perspective with the decisionmakers that needed it in order to make smarter decisions. Including decisions about funding and policy that directly impact her organization and the people she serves. In this episode, we share: The two main causes of failing to claim our status as an expert Common fears and stories that cause leaders to doubt their expert status One powerful reframe that will help you claim the identity of expert The easiest and fastest way to establish your expert identity One highly effective practice you can start today to increase your comfort with owning your expertise If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders. And I’d be grateful if you would leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, which will help even more people find out about this podcast. Thanks!

August 21, 2026Episode 15919 min

How to get Decisionmakers to Buy in to Your Biggest Vision

If you’re like many Nonprofit leaders, you already have a big vision that you want to make happen. Taking that big, amazing vision and bringing it into being requires being able to bring along the influential and powerful decisionmakers who can help you make it happen. Even the most amazing visionaries don't bring their vision into reality in the world without involving other people. And for those of us in the Nonprofit universe, some of the people that we absolutely need to have bought into our vision are those decisionmakers that are investors, that can bring resources, influence, reach, and the ability to help make things happen. We’ve got to have them on board. Unfortunately, as you probably have already experienced, having an amazing vision does not automatically translate to having those decisionmakers jump on board, and be enthusiastic in helping to bring that about and make it happen with you as a partner. That's what we want. But getting that is often a struggle, quite honestly. Today I want to break down what's in the way that sometimes causes it to be a struggle. And what we can do to clear that out of the way and get on the path to getting those decisionmakers fully on board with the vision and diving in with both hands. In this episode, we share: The four ingredients of a compelling vision The unconscious ways we often undermine our efforts to get decisionmakers excited about our vision The biggest common mistake leaders make when sharing their vision with decisionmakers How to create the emotional power that will connect with the decisionmaker’s subconscious and engage their imagination The three key elements of a winning engagement strategy around your vision If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders. And I’d be grateful if you would leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, which will help even more people find out about this podcast. Thanks!

August 14, 2026Episode 15830 min

How the Hidden Power of Your Voice can Make or Break Your Biggest Deals

It's time we looked at a piece of your messaging that I haven't talked about enough. Our voice is our most powerful tool, quite honestly. If we are able to use it to its maximum effect. This is the completely secret ingredient that is not getting enough attention. But too often what's going on is that we're not using our voice to maximum effect. You know I am all about great messaging. Great messaging is essential to your advocacy success. But what happens a lot of the time, and particularly in three specific scenarios, is that our voice doesn't match our messaging. And that's where we get into real trouble, because that mismatch can torpedo even the very best messaging. I don't want that to happen to you. Here’s what’s going on and why it matters. What we humans do when someone else is talking to us, is our subconscious is processing the sound of the voice and drawing all sorts of conclusions. And making all sorts of decisions about that person before the conscious thinking brain ever gets involved. If a decisionmaker’s subconscious is processing the sound of your voice as, " yeah, no, that's not for me." That will cost you the investment. That will cost you the thing you came there for. Because their subconscious has already decided that it's a no. The conscious brain will sit there and listen politely, and it might even smile and nod and ask a couple questions, but it won't engage. Because the subconscious already told it, "Nope. We're not doing this. This isn't for us." That's where it becomes incredibly costly. And we can't afford that. In this episode, we share: What the decisionmaker’s subconscious needs to hear in your voice in order to get to “yes” What a decisionmaker’s subconscious hears when your voice is not aligned with your message How total alignment between message and voice led to a $15 million investment for one Nonprofit leader The three most common scenarios where there’s a high risk of your voice being out of alignment with your message The most dangerous wrong conclusion Nonprofit leaders often draw when a decisionmaker disengages One action you can take today to improve alignment of your voice with your message I’ll be bringing this powerful voice coaching tool into my work. If you found this episode intriguing, message me and let me know if you’d like to learn more, or if you’d like to find out how to work with me to increase the power of your voice. Message me through the podcast website or on LinkedIn .

August 8, 2026Episode 15718 min

The Easiest Ways to Help Your Clients Register to Vote

Whether you’re focused on it or not, the 2026 elections are just around the corner. This is a moment of golden opportunity to help make sure that every one of our clients who's eligible to vote is registered and has the opportunity to have their vote counted. There's a lot of moving parts to that, and a lot of opportunities for us as Nonprofit leaders to help our clients make sure their vote is counted. But today I'm focusing on one very critical technical detail, which is registration. The good news is there is a ton of voter enthusiasm this year. We're seeing it everywhere. There's been a whole series of special elections leading up to now. A lot of states have already held their primaries. And the turnout for all of those elections has been off the charts. That's really exciting news because it means that people do want to participate. They do want to make their voice heard. And they are really clear that the ballot box is one of the most critical places they can do that. Which is awesome because it means we don't have to spend a ton of time helping people understand why it's important to vote. They already know that. And what they want is to be able to vote and not have it be a hassle, to have it be safe, and to make sure that when they do vote, their vote is counted. But the bottom line is you can't vote if you're not registered. And registration deadlines are coming up. We still have plenty of time, but quite a number of states have registration rules that say you have to have your registration submitted and approved at least a month before the election. We want to be able to support clients in ways that are easy for us - and for them - to make sure they are registered and that their registration is fully in order. In this episode, we share: A quick breakdown of which states allow online registration and which do not The two key requirements for online registration that you and our clients need to know about The best one-click resource for the online registration rules for your state The best one-stop, state-specific resource to help you with paper registration for those who can’t register online Four key actions to take between now and Sept 1 to prepare to help clients with their registration Links: Episode 147 – Why Your Clients are Most Likely to be Harmed by Attacks on Voting Rights and What to Do About It The best quick access resource for the online voter registration website for your state is https://www.rockthevote.org/online/ This page gives you a direct link to online voter registration in your state. The best source for info on how to get trained on how to help with paper registration, as well as all the info you need on the registration rules, etc. for your state, is https://www.nonprofitvote.org/voting-in-your-state/ If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders. And I’d be grateful if you would leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, which will help even more people find out about this podcast. Thanks!

July 31, 2026Episode 15632 min

Self Care in Times of Total Insanity

How do we all be okay when so much is not okay in the world? There's so much bad, scary, overwhelming stuff going on constantly that it’s really hard sometimes to just get out of bed in the morning. Nevermind show up as our best, empowered Nonprofit leader selves, fighting for what's right, fighting for the people we serve, and to protect our communities. We can't do that without some help. So the conversation is increasingly turning to a search for information, a search for ideas, as we ask each other: What are you doing to cope? How are you managing? Have you figured something out? Can you share it with me? I think it's incredibly important that we talk with one another about this on a regular basis, and that we keep our emotional and physical wellbeing at the forefront of our attention in this time. And I know that’s a lot easier said than done, which is why I want us to talk about it. I don't have THE ANSWER. Nobody does. But I have some thoughts and observations about what I'm finding is working for me, and what I'm hearing from others is working for them. And some patterns, some consistencies I’m seeing that I think are worth calling out and sharing with you. There are also a couple of cautionary notes for us as nonprofit leaders to flag and be super aware of with our teams, because they're looking to us for help. In this episode, we share: How stress manifests itself in the body, and how to use that knowledge to reduce those damaging effects Three physical stress management techniques that work in under three minutes The two aspects of self-awareness that are key to all emotional/ mental/ spiritual self-care How to catch signs of martyrdom in yourself and your team, and how to counter that How we can both model behavior and create an environment of policy and practice that supports our team in their own self-care work If you found value in this episode, please let others know! I’d be grateful if you would leave a review on iTunes or wherever you listen. Your reviews help other nonprofit leaders find the podcast. Thanks!!

July 24, 2026Episode 15524 min

The Huge Hidden Obstacle to Reaching Your Biggest Vision and Goals, and How to Get Past It

If you're like so many Nonprofit leaders that I work with, you have a big vision, or maybe a big new ambitious goal. And you know it has the potential to make a huge impact. You're inspired and excited about it. Yet you find that you keep putting off taking the actions that will start moving you toward that big thing. You have lots of good reasons for that. Now's not a good time. Maybe when things calm down a little, we can focus on that, but right now we have too many urgent things to deal with. Or maybe it's, I'm not ready yet. First I need to learn more or plan more, research more, etc. If that's what's going on, you are not alone. This is a super common problem, and I want to let you in on what's actually going on when that's happening. Those all sound like real rational things that are true, right? Things are crazy right now. We have too much going on. We can't possibly be doing the stretch thing right now. I'll do that later. I'll do that soon. Here's the thing. What's really going on is that is your subconscious tricking you into staying right where you are. Your subconscious will always tell you that now is not the right time, that you're not ready yet, and so on, and so on. That's why we so often put off going after that big, scary goal, the big bodacious vision or dream. Because it feels really scary to the subconscious. It does not like change. It regards anything new as a threat, and it will do whatever it takes to stop you from walking into that threat. But we don't have to let that happen. We can absolutely hack our subconscious to align with our ambitions, and to do amazing things for us. In this episode, we share: The two types of resistance your subconscious will put up to stop you from pursuing your big thing How to calm your subconscious and get it to drop its resistance How to recognize tricks of the subconscious that masquerade as rational thought The simplest way to harness your subconscious and get it working with you to achieve your big goal How to start stepping into the identities that align with your big ambitious goal or vision How to deal with other people’s (board and team) subconscious efforts to derail your ambitions If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders. And I’d be grateful if you would leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, which will help even more people find out about this podcast. Thanks!

July 17, 2026Episode 15422 min

The Big Hole in Your Messaging that You Can't See and that's Costing You Money

There is a huge messaging problem that happens all the time with Nonprofit leaders that is virtually invisible to us, and yet can be incredibly costly. And I don't want that to be happening to you. But the truth is, it probably is, at least with some of your decisionmakers. Here's how you know that it's happening. If you have any decisionmakers who still aren't getting it about what you really do and the impact of it and its value, there is most definitely a hole in your messaging. When they're not getting it, the very first place to look is your messaging around the problem you solve. And here's why. The truth is decisionmakers will not care one bit about your solution if they don't first care about the problem that you solve. Part of the problem is we tend to think that the problem is obvious, that everybody already gets that. And so we jump right to the solution. We start right in with, "Here's what we do. Here's who we help. Blah, blah, blah." But the fact is, most decisionmakers do not go around thinking every day about the problem that you solve, and it’s very unlikely they understand the level of impact of the problem in the way that you do. They're not going to be listening to how great your solution is if they don't first think that the problem is important, serious, and urgent to solve. If they don't think those things, then all your cool information about how you solve it and the wonderful results that it produces, just slides off them. Because in their head, they're like, "Yeah, but it's not that big a problem, so whatever." And more to the point, if they don’t think the problem you solve is important, serious and urgent, why would they ever invest in your solution? In this episode, we share: The primary causes of decisionmakers not understanding the problem The three messaging elements that will get decisionmakers to see the problem you solve as important and urgent The vital question you must ask multiple times as you develop your messaging around the problem The most common unhelpful belief decisionmakers have that causes them to disregard the problem The critical ingredient to add to your messaging to disrupt those unhelpful beliefs If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders. And I’d be grateful if you would leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, which will help even more people find out about this podcast. Thanks!

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