June 6, 2025 • 29 mins
Matt Lombardi, founder of Share Talent, introduces a transformative approach to nonprofit growth by applying lean startup principles rooted in his journey from ministry to digital consulting. He urges mission-driven organizations to build with their communities, not just for them, through radical humility, listening, and experimentation. Using frameworks like MVPs (Minimum Viable Products) and MAPs (Minimum Awesome Products), Matt shows how nonprofits can adapt quickly, avoid waste, and sustain impact. His core message challenges the status quo: stop chasing more funding—start asking better questions, kill what no longer works, and build what truly matters.
Get free nonprofit professional development resources, connections to cause work peers, and more at https://nonprofithub.org
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Drowning in spreadsheets and manual
processes.
Bonterra Apricot is the smarter, faster way for nonprofits to
manage programs, track outcomesand actually show your impact.
Find out how at BonterraTechcomslash Nonprofit Hub.
Welcome back to the NonprofitHub podcast.
I'm your host, megan Spear,joined today by my friend, matt
(00:23):
Lombardi, who's the founder ofShare Talent.
Matt, so excited to have you onthe show.
Welcome in.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I am pumped to be here.
Thanks so much for having me,Megan.
It's going to be a good time.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Absolutely, Absolutely.
So we're going to we have somereally interesting stuff to dig
into.
I'm really excited.
I think it's going to be superhelpful for our nonprofit
friends.
But before that, tell us alittle bit about yourself and
kind of your journey.
How did we get here today?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, so the journey is, like most nonprofit leaders,
right, or people who are inthis space, no one dreamed about
this when you were a little kidI did not Sure A teacher, like
when I grow up one day I reallyjust want to help faith-based
causes raise more money andreach more audiences.
That definitely was not thestory.
So really my journey into itwas accidental, through working
in churches.
So I spent about eight yearsworking in churches pastoral
(01:06):
roles, every other role youcould possibly imagine and they
were always church plants.
So if you know anything aboutthe faith space, kind of like
the startups of church world,and so that kind of gave me an
entrepreneurial knack of tryingnew things, always wanted to be
in those kind of new, upstart,energizing environments.
So I did that for a while andthen kind of hit a season where,
honestly, like I was out ofchurch ministry.
(01:28):
No weird thing, just likeliterally we moved to a town
where it's like there were nochurches to work for.
So I kind of had this likecrisis in my mid twenties of
like what am I supposed to donow?
And through just a series offriends who were like hey, you
kind of know how to do thedigital creative stuff.
Can you help us with this?
Can you help us with that?
That drugged me into doing somedigital consulting for
nonprofits and then, in 2020,kind of had this crazy idea of
(01:50):
hey, I have no tech background,why don't I start a tech company
?
And so that happened in 2020.
I have a co-founder or two inthat.
That helped us start Share.
We started as the firstfreelance platform, so think
like Fiverr or Upwork forfaith-based organizations, and
so started that.
Frankly, like the first twoyears, it was beating our head
against the wall, kind of acolossal failure, not because
(02:11):
the product wasn't good, but itwas just like funded on a former
pastor savings account, whichis not recommended by most
venture capitalists on how tostart a tech company.
And so through that journey, wehad clients who were like hey,
we love the talent that you guyshave on the platform, but we
need help managing that.
And so that kind of drug us tobecome a digital agency.
And I say drug us because noneof this was some master
(02:32):
orchestrated plan.
It was all just okay.
What's the next logical step?
What did it seem like?
The door was opening.
And so, through that same wayabout two years ago, we kind of
had some mentors and friends whowere like, hey, you're doing
all this digital marketing stuff, that's awesome, can you help
us raise money too?
And so that kind of got us intothe space where now we serve
with digital fundraising andmarketing.
Mostly we say small-ishnonprofits, so that one to $20
(02:56):
million range and our bet isfaith-based because that's my
background, not because we'reexclusive, but because that's
just the world I know and thewater that we know to swim in.
So that's a little bit moreabout us.
I live in Tampa, florida, soshout out, if you're ever in
Tampa, come hang out.
Got three little kiddos and adog.
That is just a completedisaster right now, but it's fun
.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I love it.
So, actually part of thatjourney, kind of piggybacks on
where the topic of today, right.
So one of the things I think aswe sit here, right, so one of
the things I think as we sithere mid 2025, nonprofits in
general having a realinteresting year yeah,
(03:36):
definitely All the things, but Ithink one thing that is
emerging throughout this is thisidea of scalability, first of
all, but also financial prudence, right, these are two themes
that we see emerging, and so,similarly, one of the things
that you and I have been talkingabout is what it looks like to
scale appropriately innon-profit, right, instead of
(04:00):
because it would be lovely tothink that I have this idea I'm
going to change the world andI'm immediately going to be a
$20 million organizationEverybody's going to buy in.
This is going to take over theworld and I am going to change
the planet.
That is all lovely.
The reality is, that's notwhere we are in an economic
(04:20):
standpoint right now.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Maybe never have we been there.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
That's never been viable.
Yeah, have we been there Likethat's never been viable, yeah.
But there's very much anapproach, I think, on the
for-profit side that we canlearn from, and I'd love to hear
your take on that, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Yeah, so thanks for taking that up.
So it's I mean, honestly, somuch of it is embedded in our
story as a company where we wereself-funded.
We didn't have some big hey,here's an injection of a few
million dollars to start, and sowe went with an approach a
really famous book by a guynamed Eric Reese called the Lean
Startup.
A lot of people may have heardof that and may have read that
before, but I don't really seethat being applied a lot in
(04:55):
nonprofit world.
So that's something that we tryto do.
We're kind of evangelists forthat of like, hey, this lean
approach to building a nonprofitcan actually work.
And there's a lot of thingsthat we need to learn from that
tech space, not because we'rebuilding technology, but because
we're trying to seetransformation and we need to
learn to listen to ourconstituents whether that's
donors, our audiences, whetherthat's our board and build smart
(05:19):
and scale up with feedback fromour audiences, as opposed to we
have this like American myth of, oh, if we build it, they will
come, and that's just neverworked.
And so my passion is to say,hey, how do we start working
with our constituents instead offor them?
Like a lot of times we say, ohwell, we're going to, let's go
out and we're building somethingfor our donors or we're
(05:40):
building something for ourcommunity, and instead, what
does it look like to build withour community?
What does it look like to buildwith our community?
What does it look like to bringthem into the process early and
now?
That's scary, right, it's scarybecause we may have, especially
as like, visionary founders orexecutive directors or
leadership team.
We have this vision becausewe're in it all the time and
we're kind of protective, thatlike we don't want anyone to
come in and say, hey, that thingyou're building actually isn't
(06:02):
going to work, and we don't wantit Because, like, then it's
well, what do we do now?
And so I think there's a lot offear around it, but what we're
passionate about is saying, Ithink there's a way where we can
involve people with us to build, as opposed to building for
them.
And so that's the key startingpoint, I think, is just to shift
that mindset from building forto building with folks.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
That's so tough, though, because it requires a
degree of humility that is notoften found in the founder
mentality right, because it'sthe humility to say I want to
know what the community actuallyneeds versus what I.
Let me tell you what you need.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah, it requires that focus on empathy instead of
execution, right, yes, and mostfounders really want to go
execute on something and getstuff done and build things.
Sure, but instead of execution,you have to shift your brain to
be empathetic and say, okay,first I need to listen.
That's kind of like step one inthe process, just being a good
listener to your community, toyour donors, to your team, even
when you're saying, okay, whatis it that's actually needed
(07:04):
here, what is it that's actuallyrequired of us, or what are
people really hungry for,instead of just, oh, let's just
go build.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Okay, so let's.
I want to talk to a couple ofdifferent audiences with this
conversation.
Let's start with.
Let's start with what is maybethe easier version, which is
somebody who's thinking aboutstarting a nonprofit.
We're.
Which is somebody who'sthinking about starting a
nonprofit.
We're not there yet.
We're thinking about it.
We have a plan.
There's a problem in ourcommunity that we think we would
like to solve.
(07:32):
How do we start that In thisconversation?
That's kind of the ideal, right, like you, haven't made
mistakes yet.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Right, you haven't gone down that track yet, right.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Where would you point someone to start with that lean
mentality?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah.
So this is going to.
This is going to hurt somehearts and that's okay.
I'm okay with it, One of thefirst thing I do.
So if you've got this, italways starts with an idea.
Right, you have to have an idea.
You're never going to just gowith pure blank slate of hey,
whatever need in the community,I want to solve it.
You're always gonna have anidea.
But the empathy part and thehumility part is I would start
first and figuring out is thereanyone in the community who's
(08:08):
already solving this pretty well?
is there someone already doing apretty good job on this.
And this is where it takes aton of self-awareness and,
frankly, a ton of research andconversations and questions to
say am I like just kind ofreinventing the wheel here?
Am I I assuming that I'm goingto have a different spin on it?
But in reality we've got 10 keypillars of our programs.
(08:29):
I'm actually changing one ofthem from the nine other that
someone else is already doingreally well, and that's a hard
conversation to think of.
But, like the number of youknow, food banks in our
community is staggering andthey're all kind of doing the
same thing and so that's kind ofI do think that's first.
If you're pre-launch and you'renot down this road yet, it's hey
(08:50):
, have an honest conversationwith the people in your
community.
The people have already startedthese with your own heart to
say do I want to do this Causethis is about my ego and I want
to say something, or am I doingthis because I really want to
solve a problem?
And that's a gut check for alot of folks.
But I would start there and say, hey, is someone already
solving this need in a prettyprofound way in our community?
(09:10):
If it's not, and if you feellike you actually have a pretty
radical approach, the firstthing I do is really just start
intentionally havingconversations.
And what I don't mean by thatis I'm going to have five
coffees with people who arealready friends and then say,
yep, I got the validation I need.
There's a need in the community.
That's not what I mean.
That's often what we call thatlike the mom test, like
(09:31):
everyone's mom is going to sayit's a great idea.
Sure, all your friends aregoing to say, right, of course,
it's going to be a huge hit andyou'll be bigger than world
vision.
That's what they're all goingto say.
What I mean is go have 20, 30conversations with people who
would know in the community, whodon't actually have a personal
attachment to you at all, andthen log all those conversations
.
This is kind of like thatdata-driven techie kind of
(09:53):
approach.
Right, it's like you're loggingeverything and saying, okay,
what was their actual feedback?
Have a set of questions builtout that you're going to ask and
actually get real feedback fromthem.
Bonus points, because I'm liketech nerd If you can do it via
Zoom and have AI record it foryou, then you don't have to do
all the note taking.
They can just auto populateinto a Google Sheet.
Great, do that.
But that would be.
(10:13):
Step one is actually almost runa mini focus group of people
who are not going toautomatically give you yeses and
figure out is there an actualneed for this community need?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
for this community.
I agree with you.
There might be some people whoare a little heart hurt at the
moment.
For sure, love you so much, loveyou so much and I applaud you
and your willingness to like tryand make the world a better
place.
But we've talked to so manyfolks on the podcast about the
importance of collaboration andthis idea that we don't need 10
(10:44):
organizations that are doing thesame thing when what would
happen if you all workedtogether to accomplish that goal
.
So I love that call out forcollaboration.
I think that's a great place tostart.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Yeah.
So that's where I would start.
I would start with see if youcan collaborate.
If not, if there are definitelypeople out there who have a
super unique organization, theywant to start.
That is solving a specificproblem that isn't being solved
other places.
And once you get to that point,then just be objective with the
feedback you get and don't kindof stack the deck in your favor
to get what you want, butactually get real feedback
(11:25):
because it's going to save, makea salary for five years and the
reality is it's probably notgoing to get off the ground
because they didn't do the hardwork in the first place to say,
hey, is there really a viableneed for this?
If we can save someone fiveyears of heartache and have them
partner with a ministry that'salready doing great stuff and
they get to still see the changethey want to affect in the
world, that's a win.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's a great call.
So to me, then, the flip sideof that is maybe an organization
that is.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Actually, I'm going to do two and you can decide
which one you'd like to answerfirst.
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Because I think that there are organizations out
there who have maybe they'vefounded, they've scaled, they're
trying to whatever, but lean isnot the word that they would
use to describe themselves.
Yeah right, and maybe we gotahead of ourselves and we're
kind of finding ourselves in atight spot.
The other side of that rate isthat there are a number of
(12:21):
organizations out there, thanksto a lot of grant funding being
cut, who all of a sudden findthemselves in a position where
they have to be leaner than theyare used to being, and so I'd
love to have your take on bothof those.
If you happen to find yourselfin those situations, what does
it look like to lead effectivelyand to keep moving the mission
(12:45):
forward If you maybe skipped thelean step at the beginning?
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Right, right.
So yeah, two kind of differentscenarios, but both kind of the
same issue, which is you'regoing to find yourself with an
organization that, frankly,probably has too much If we're
trying for lean probably toomuch bloat.
Right, there's nine layers ofdecision making and I was
talking to the organization theother day that like to move one
tech solution, like that's goingto be a five-year process for
(13:11):
us and they're big, but still incorporate world, like nothing
takes, like you're not, it'slike you can yeah, it's not
going to take you five years,trust me.
And so for both of those typesof organizations that you laid
out, if you're not kind ofrunning a lean approach, you're
both kind of in a stage where,if you're honest, you'd say
we're probably a little bloated.
Or maybe we're not bloated inthe sense of staffing, right,
(13:33):
because a lot of people think,oh well, no, our staff is
stretched, we're all crushing it, we're working, you know, 60,
70 hour weeks, like how couldyou say we're bloated?
I don't mean bloated just likestaffing, I mean like decision
making bloat, that it takes waytoo long to get the smallest
campaign through.
So in both of those cases, Ithink the first step is to start
(13:56):
trying to institute a culturethat's okay with failure, which
is not usually what anyone wantsto hear, because no one wants
to be the person on their KPIreporting at the end of the
quarter that says, hey, wefailed right, that's not good
for anyone.
Kpi reporting at the end of thequarter that says, hey, we
failed right, that's not goodfor anyone.
But organizations shifting aculture to celebrate failures if
(14:17):
they're the right kinds offailures, not just like, hey, we
didn't meet budget this year,that's not the kind of failures
I'm talking about.
I'm talking about failures thatare hey, we're going to try a
new thing.
We have no idea if this isgoing to work or not, but we've
gotten great feedback from ourdonors on this.
We want to try it for six weeks, see what happens, and then,
hey, it failed.
Hey, we learned something.
And they don't get chastisedfor it, they don't get.
It's not getting written up ina performance review, it's not
(14:39):
something that makes peoplethink in the organization oh,
you're not doing it right.
Because the reality is most ofthe time when you're working
lean and fast, you're going tofail more often than you succeed
.
And the sooner yourorganization gets comfortable
with the fact that noteverything is going to work, and
that's okay, because when itdoes work we're going to have
rocket ship growth on it.
(14:59):
That's kind of what we're after.
Is this approach of hey, fail,test, fail fast, celebrate the
failure and say, hey, we learneda lot, we know what we're not
going to do now, don't put toomany resources at it and then
move on to the next thing andkeep iterating?
So that's kind of the firstapproach I'd say is like senior
leadership, whether you're theED, whether you're on the board,
(15:19):
whether you're at a VP role,you've got to switch your
mindset to say failure is notfinal and failure is actually a
massive opportunity if weapproach it the right way.
So that's the first thing I'dsay is get more comfortable with
failure.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Ever feel like you're stuck managing programs in
spreadsheets and scatteredsystems?
Apricot by Bonterra is asmarter, faster way for
nonprofits to track outcomes,simplify reporting and unlock
more funding.
With tools built for realnonprofit workflows and trusted
by over 3,400 organizations, ithelps your team grow your impact
(16:00):
and better serve your community.
You can meet us atBonterratechcom.
Slash nonprofit hub today.
Slash nonprofit hub today.
I want to go back to a wordthat you just said, One because
so I came from a for-profitcompany as well, where the
(16:21):
mindset was we win or we learn.
Yep, Right, there's no losing.
That's right.
We win or we learn.
Um, but you used a word therethat I think, especially in like
the for-profit tech space, isjust part of the culture and
part of the norm that I don'tknow has necessarily found its
(16:42):
way to non-profit culture yet,and that is iteration.
Yeah, absolutely so this yeah,absolutely.
So this idea that I have to, ifI'm going to launch something,
it has to be the full, 100%scope.
It has to be perfect, it has tobe and I'm talking about not
even necessarily your fullprogram that you're launching as
(17:02):
a nonprofit but if I'm going tolaunch any piece, it has to be
100%, complete and totallyperfect.
Man, that's a mindset I wouldlove to see us get rid of in the
nonprofit sector and learn alittle bit more from the
for-profit side.
So talk a little bit more aboutwhat iteration looks like from
a practical standpoint.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yeah, so two terms I'm going to use so one probably
heard it before, some may nothave which is MVP, so that's a
classic kind of tech termminimum viable product, right,
so like what?
is the most valuable player notmost valuable player, although
that's a really great one too,if you're sports.
I learned long ago as a pastor,though, that sports metaphors
just always fall flat.
I'd always be.
(17:41):
And then baseball does it.
And then everyone like, perhapsI don't know.
So no sports metaphors, but mvminimum viable product.
This is not like every bell andwhistle on it.
So let's say, like, let me justuse a really tactical example
of what, like MVP building canlook like, cause I know we're
kind of going high level metaright now, and so there may be
some people out there listeningto be like I don't even know
(18:02):
what you mean when you say that.
Like what does that even looklike?
So let me give you an exampleof something that we do as a
company for clients a lot, and Ithink it's really helpful.
So, before we launch campaignsfor a client, we are going to
get a list of about 15 to 20kind of like key messaging
headlines.
So we call them almost like thevalue, key value proposition of
(18:22):
the campaign.
But instead of just launchingwith one and then AB testing on
the backend to figure out like,oh, which one's the winner with
five different landing pagesright, which is a lot of work.
We do the opposite, which is weactually go ahead of time and
we will build out just like themost basic, like blue background
with text on it, headline copy,and then we'll run like 15 to
(18:44):
20 of those on meta as ads,right, with a $50 ad spend, like
dirt cheap new design skillsneeded, like you can do this in
Canva in 10 minutes.
And then what we'll do is we'llliterally just run all those
individuals as part of thecampaign as an ad set and figure
out which one gets the mostclicks, because what we're
testing for is like intent fromthe audience, of which one
(19:05):
captures their attention.
And so we know if something youknow.
You see 15, 20 of them.
Okay, 12 of these no oneclicked on, but three of them
got three clicks and one of themgot seven clicks.
Ding, ding, we have a winner.
That's a minimum viable productfor like a campaign launch to
try to like test messaging whereyou're saying, hey, how can we
do this really cheap, reallyfast, with a small audience,
(19:27):
cause we're not running it toour entire ads audience like a
few hundred people just to see,right, and so that's like a
tactile example of whatiteration looks like.
And then we're able to say,okay, well, now we know the
winner, now let's put that inplace and see a lift for our
campaigns.
So there are examples like thatwhere what you're looking for
is that minimum viable productand then there is.
This is kind of a thing likeeven amongst my friends who talk
(19:48):
about tech and nonprofit spacebut aren't necessarily in the
tech space there's a little bitof development on this recently
that I have to kind of mention,which is we're moving from MVP
to MAP or map, which is it's notenough anymore to have a
minimum viable product.
Viable almost has this like ducttape, bubble gum, like kind of
crummy version of it connotation.
(20:09):
But we're moving because theworld has been so cannibalized
by software and user experienceand design and it's just like
even though, like you know,smallest nonprofit actually is
pretty decent looking graphics,now because of Canva we've
actually moved to a phase whereyou have to have a minimum
awesome product, and so I wantto think about that because
that's kind of what we're seeingin tech space.
It's not enough just to have thetrue bubblegum and duct tape.
It's at least got to be awell-built version, like small
(20:34):
version right, so people willput up with not having enough
features, or maybe the programisn't fully built out yet, but
it can't be like no clarity toit at all, like your campaign
can't, just it can't have areally poorly designed landing
page, or like terrible copyright, like it's got to be good, it
just doesn't have to be all thebells and whistles right away.
So that's, it's kind of adistinction.
(20:55):
But something I want to touchon is like I'm not saying be
cheap and crummy with it.
I'm saying like do itprofessionally, do with
excellence, but scaled downright, like far scaled down from
what your dream kind ofscenario is, far scaled down
from what your dream kind ofscenario is.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
So I'm thinking about that too from a like a
programmatic side.
Right On the things that thenonprofit does, there was a, an
organization that I was workingwith here in Pittsburgh that was
trying to start a charterschool.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Cool.
In an ideal world, 15 yearsfrom now, they would love to be
offering pre-k through 12thgrade.
Great yep.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
But we're not going to open with pre-k to 12th grade
, right exactly, and so I thinkwe go raise 40 million dollars
to go through that so theystarted with pre-k, exactly.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
They did one year pre-k and then when those people
, when those folks were done,those little children were done
and ready to go to kindergarten,now we have pre-K and
kindergarten, yeah Right.
And then each year, from therewe continue to add a grade as
those kids continue to get older, and that's not to say that new
kids can't come to second grade.
We hope they do Right, right,add instead of.
(22:13):
And so I think maybe that'slike a programmatical, tactical
approach instead of the campaignside, to really kind of help
wrap our minds around that too.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Well, and like a lot of people have to fight, is this
idea because you're going toget a donor who comes in and
says, yeah, I'd be a hundredthousand dollars if you have a
third grade right now for mythird grader Right, and you have
to say no we're not there yet.
Not our focus right now.
We could do a million.
Yes, we could do a millionthings, but we're just pre-K
right now.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah, and I think that's man.
That's such the tension,because who wants to say no to a
donor who wants to do thethings?
Speaker 2 (22:45):
right who wants to do all the things, but the problem
is that now, as much as thatdonor wants to give you the gift
, now you're down a road thatyou can't undo.
Right, because now you havethird grade, which means you
have to have second grade andfirst grade, and you probably
need fourth grade and fifthgrade too now, because if you're
going to have third grade, youjust got to throw that in.
So the temptation it's kind oflike the, you know, when someone
(23:07):
like gives me this happens alot like e-com store or some
sort of thing and it's hey, get$40 to spend free or something
like that.
And it's like yeah, but youknow that I'm spending $40, but
I'm actually going to be in a120 by the time I actually get
in your store or finish myshopping cart Right, which is
that's a great deal, but it'sactually not a great deal
because I'm still spending waymore than I had budget spend,
which was zero dollars.
(23:28):
So I think that temptation isthere for a lot of us in
nonprofit world.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yeah, oh, that's so good and such a good reminder of
why None of this happens unlessyou understand your mission.
Yeah absolutely Right.
If we're focused on the missionand that is what's ruling all
of the decision making, then itbecomes a lot easier to iterate,
to scale, to test.
(23:51):
But if we're letting donoropinions, everyone else's
opinions, board opinions, allthe different factions be the
deciding factor, then, man, it'sso hard to stick to that lean
model.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Yeah, and it's pretty critical in that iteration,
like, since we're talkingiteration, the iteration should
be pretty ruthless about data onthat.
That's why I said I mentionedlike, hey, don't bring your
friends in, don't bring thedonor who already wants to see
this thing done, because ofcourse they're going to tell you
, yeah, you should absolutely dothis, you should go all in on
it.
You have to be pretty ruthless,especially as we're talking to
(24:25):
these organizations that alreadyexist, about saying, okay, I
know someone wants that tohappen or that was our vision,
but like all of our feedbackfrom the people that were all
the key stakeholders, right,whether that's donors, whether
that's community is saying theydon't actually want this, or
maybe they want it, but theywant it in this way instead of
that way.
Or maybe they say, yes, amen,we want this a thousand percent,
(24:48):
but not right now, right, likethere's so many variables there
and so you have to be prettyruthless with sticking to what's
the data actually telling usand you're actually logging that
data and actually having asystem for that.
And then the other thing ifyou're an organization that
already exists and this is thehard part, so sorry, to be like
the bearer of bad news today islike sometimes if you're trying
to get lean and try to establishsomething like this, you have
(25:09):
to kill some sacred cows, right?
We all have been a part oforganizations where there are
programs that everyone knows arenot net positive for the
organization and yet we keepthem because no one wants to
have the hard conversations.
That thing is just a money pitand it's not actually serving
anyone well, or maybe the ROI isterrible on it and we could
(25:30):
actually serve way better if wewould shift the model.
So you have to be willing tokill in those other
organizations, you have to notbe afraid of failure, and then
you also have to be able to comein and say, hey, there's some
sacred cows here that we'regoing to be okay with killing.
And yeah, one of my mentorsused to always tell me like the
pain of staying the same has toget to a point where it eclipses
the pain of change for anorganization to actually move.
(25:51):
And so having you know ifyou're part of a leadership team
it's having that conversationof hey, is the pain of staying
the same so great right now thatwe actually want to change, or
are we still like in a kind ofcomfy spot where we're not
really willing to change yet.
Because I used to be a pastor, Idid this, made this mistake a
lot, killed some sacred cowsbefore their time to be killed
(26:11):
and then I got killed and so youhave to be wise about, like,
how you kill those.
So walk wisely into killingthose sacred cows.
But if you're at a point whereyou know, hey, we need to do
this, you have organizationalbuy-in.
You can't be afraid to say, hey, we're going to kill some stuff
if it's not working anymore andjust have that kind of ruthless
approach to iteration if youwant the organization to
continue to grow.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Man Matt, I realize a lot of it has been maybe the
bearer of bad news, but I thinkit's so wonderful.
Man, such good stuff, so as weclose two things One.
If man, such good stuff, so aswe close two things One.
If somebody wanted to learnmore or connect with you, learn
more about Share, how do we goabout doing that?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Oh yeah, absolutely so.
If you want to connect with mepersonally, linkedin is usually
the best way.
Just LinkedIn, search MattLombardi and I'll probably pop
up pretty fast, especially ifyou have any kind of nonprofit
connections.
So that's the best waypersonally for me.
If you want to find out moreabout share, you can go to share
talentco.
No M on that, just sharetalentco.
You'll be in a good spot there.
But LinkedIn, honestly, isusually the best thing.
(27:10):
I love just making connectionswith people, hopping on, having
conversations and just seeingwhat other folks in the
nonprofit space are up to.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
So LinkedIn is the best you can check out.
The company site share talentcoVery good and there's some
exciting things coming for sharepretty soon, are, yeah?
So give us like a tiny teasethere.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Give me a little tiny teaser.
So we're kind of getting backto our roots as a tech company.
We'll still have the agency,still gonna be doing great work
with clients, but we'rerelaunching our original
platform a little bit differentversion of it Yet again.
This is one of those thingslike don't be afraid to say I
was stupid, I was wrong.
In the past.
We thought, oh, when we launchedit, that we're going to get all
these people who want to postprojects and work with people
and do financial transactions,we realized that just wasn't the
(27:49):
market.
Like, people don't really wantthat.
What they really wanted wasconnection and that's what they
were after.
And so it'll be kind of a newhub where folks in the space who
are working for the good of theworld on a cause get to kind of
set a profile, get inspired byother people's work, share their
work and kind of create aprofessional hub for people
working in the nonprofit spaceto share their work.
(28:09):
So excited for that coming inthe days ahead.
We're a few months out on that,but yeah, we're in private beta
on it right now.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Very cool, very good, all right.
So my closing question thisseason has been if you could
give one piece of wisdom.
This season has been if youcould give one piece of wisdom
encouragement, enlightenment, nopressure to the nonprofit
professionals of our audience.
What was your one takeaway?
What's your one piece of wisdomfor today?
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah, you don't need more resources, you need to ask
better questions.
A lot of times we think if Ijust had like we're chasing the
magic bullet of another teammember if I had more hours in
the day, if I had this, if I hadmore resources, that'd be
better.
And I think we need to askbetter questions of ourselves,
(28:57):
of the people we're trying toserve, of the communities we're
in, of our donors and actuallybuild with them instead of
building for them.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Oh, so good, Matt.
Thank you so much.
This has been reallyinteresting.
I think it's going to be reallyhelpful to a lot of our
listeners.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Enjoyed it, megan, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
My pleasure, this has been another episode of the
Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast.
I'm your host, megan Spear, andwe'll see you next time.
Drowning in spreadsheets and manual
processes.
Bonterra Apricot is the smarter, faster way for nonprofits to
manage programs, track outcomesand actually show your impact.
Find out how at BonterraTechcomslash Nonprofit Hub.
Welcome back to the NonprofitHub podcast.
I'm your host, megan Spear,joined today by my friend, matt
(00:23):
Lombardi, who's the founder ofShare Talent.
Matt, so excited to have you onthe show.
Welcome in.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I am pumped to be here.
Thanks so much for having me,Megan.
It's going to be a good time.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Absolutely, Absolutely.
So we're going to we have somereally interesting stuff to dig
into.
I'm really excited.
I think it's going to be superhelpful for our nonprofit
friends.
But before that, tell us alittle bit about yourself and
kind of your journey.
How did we get here today?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, so the journey is, like most nonprofit leaders,
right, or people who are inthis space, no one dreamed about
this when you were a little kidI did not Sure A teacher, like
when I grow up one day I reallyjust want to help faith-based
causes raise more money andreach more audiences.
That definitely was not thestory.
So really my journey into itwas accidental, through working
in churches.
So I spent about eight yearsworking in churches pastoral
(01:06):
roles, every other role youcould possibly imagine and they
were always church plants.
So if you know anything aboutthe faith space, kind of like
the startups of church world,and so that kind of gave me an
entrepreneurial knack of tryingnew things, always wanted to be
in those kind of new, upstart,energizing environments.
So I did that for a while andthen kind of hit a season where,
honestly, like I was out ofchurch ministry.
(01:28):
No weird thing, just likeliterally we moved to a town
where it's like there were nochurches to work for.
So I kind of had this likecrisis in my mid twenties of
like what am I supposed to donow?
And through just a series offriends who were like hey, you
kind of know how to do thedigital creative stuff.
Can you help us with this?
Can you help us with that?
That drugged me into doing somedigital consulting for
nonprofits and then, in 2020,kind of had this crazy idea of
(01:50):
hey, I have no tech background,why don't I start a tech company
?
And so that happened in 2020.
I have a co-founder or two inthat.
That helped us start Share.
We started as the firstfreelance platform, so think
like Fiverr or Upwork forfaith-based organizations, and
so started that.
Frankly, like the first twoyears, it was beating our head
against the wall, kind of acolossal failure, not because
(02:11):
the product wasn't good, but itwas just like funded on a former
pastor savings account, whichis not recommended by most
venture capitalists on how tostart a tech company.
And so through that journey, wehad clients who were like hey,
we love the talent that you guyshave on the platform, but we
need help managing that.
And so that kind of drug us tobecome a digital agency.
And I say drug us because noneof this was some master
(02:32):
orchestrated plan.
It was all just okay.
What's the next logical step?
What did it seem like?
The door was opening.
And so, through that same wayabout two years ago, we kind of
had some mentors and friends whowere like, hey, you're doing
all this digital marketing stuff, that's awesome, can you help
us raise money too?
And so that kind of got us intothe space where now we serve
with digital fundraising andmarketing.
Mostly we say small-ishnonprofits, so that one to $20
(02:56):
million range and our bet isfaith-based because that's my
background, not because we'reexclusive, but because that's
just the world I know and thewater that we know to swim in.
So that's a little bit moreabout us.
I live in Tampa, florida, soshout out, if you're ever in
Tampa, come hang out.
Got three little kiddos and adog.
That is just a completedisaster right now, but it's fun
.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I love it.
So, actually part of thatjourney, kind of piggybacks on
where the topic of today, right.
So one of the things I think aswe sit here, right, so one of
the things I think as we sithere mid 2025, nonprofits in
general having a realinteresting year yeah,
(03:36):
definitely All the things, but Ithink one thing that is
emerging throughout this is thisidea of scalability, first of
all, but also financial prudence, right, these are two themes
that we see emerging, and so,similarly, one of the things
that you and I have been talkingabout is what it looks like to
scale appropriately innon-profit, right, instead of
(04:00):
because it would be lovely tothink that I have this idea I'm
going to change the world andI'm immediately going to be a
$20 million organizationEverybody's going to buy in.
This is going to take over theworld and I am going to change
the planet.
That is all lovely.
The reality is, that's notwhere we are in an economic
(04:20):
standpoint right now.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Maybe never have we been there.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
That's never been viable.
Yeah, have we been there Likethat's never been viable, yeah.
But there's very much anapproach, I think, on the
for-profit side that we canlearn from, and I'd love to hear
your take on that, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Yeah, so thanks for taking that up.
So it's I mean, honestly, somuch of it is embedded in our
story as a company where we wereself-funded.
We didn't have some big hey,here's an injection of a few
million dollars to start, and sowe went with an approach a
really famous book by a guynamed Eric Reese called the Lean
Startup.
A lot of people may have heardof that and may have read that
before, but I don't really seethat being applied a lot in
(04:55):
nonprofit world.
So that's something that we tryto do.
We're kind of evangelists forthat of like, hey, this lean
approach to building a nonprofitcan actually work.
And there's a lot of thingsthat we need to learn from that
tech space, not because we'rebuilding technology, but because
we're trying to seetransformation and we need to
learn to listen to ourconstituents whether that's
donors, our audiences, whetherthat's our board and build smart
(05:19):
and scale up with feedback fromour audiences, as opposed to we
have this like American myth of, oh, if we build it, they will
come, and that's just neverworked.
And so my passion is to say,hey, how do we start working
with our constituents instead offor them?
Like a lot of times we say, ohwell, we're going to, let's go
out and we're building somethingfor our donors or we're
(05:40):
building something for ourcommunity, and instead, what
does it look like to build withour community?
What does it look like to buildwith our community?
What does it look like to bringthem into the process early and
now?
That's scary, right, it's scarybecause we may have, especially
as like, visionary founders orexecutive directors or
leadership team.
We have this vision becausewe're in it all the time and
we're kind of protective, thatlike we don't want anyone to
come in and say, hey, that thingyou're building actually isn't
(06:02):
going to work, and we don't wantit Because, like, then it's
well, what do we do now?
And so I think there's a lot offear around it, but what we're
passionate about is saying, Ithink there's a way where we can
involve people with us to build, as opposed to building for
them.
And so that's the key startingpoint, I think, is just to shift
that mindset from building forto building with folks.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
That's so tough, though, because it requires a
degree of humility that is notoften found in the founder
mentality right, because it'sthe humility to say I want to
know what the community actuallyneeds versus what I.
Let me tell you what you need.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah, it requires that focus on empathy instead of
execution, right, yes, and mostfounders really want to go
execute on something and getstuff done and build things.
Sure, but instead of execution,you have to shift your brain to
be empathetic and say, okay,first I need to listen.
That's kind of like step one inthe process, just being a good
listener to your community, toyour donors, to your team, even
when you're saying, okay, whatis it that's actually needed
(07:04):
here, what is it that's actuallyrequired of us, or what are
people really hungry for,instead of just, oh, let's just
go build.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Okay, so let's.
I want to talk to a couple ofdifferent audiences with this
conversation.
Let's start with.
Let's start with what is maybethe easier version, which is
somebody who's thinking aboutstarting a nonprofit.
We're.
Which is somebody who'sthinking about starting a
nonprofit.
We're not there yet.
We're thinking about it.
We have a plan.
There's a problem in ourcommunity that we think we would
like to solve.
(07:32):
How do we start that In thisconversation?
That's kind of the ideal, right, like you, haven't made
mistakes yet.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Right, you haven't gone down that track yet, right.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Where would you point someone to start with that lean
mentality?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah.
So this is going to.
This is going to hurt somehearts and that's okay.
I'm okay with it, One of thefirst thing I do.
So if you've got this, italways starts with an idea.
Right, you have to have an idea.
You're never going to just gowith pure blank slate of hey,
whatever need in the community,I want to solve it.
You're always gonna have anidea.
But the empathy part and thehumility part is I would start
first and figuring out is thereanyone in the community who's
(08:08):
already solving this pretty well?
is there someone already doing apretty good job on this.
And this is where it takes aton of self-awareness and,
frankly, a ton of research andconversations and questions to
say am I like just kind ofreinventing the wheel here?
Am I I assuming that I'm goingto have a different spin on it?
But in reality we've got 10 keypillars of our programs.
(08:29):
I'm actually changing one ofthem from the nine other that
someone else is already doingreally well, and that's a hard
conversation to think of.
But, like the number of youknow, food banks in our
community is staggering andthey're all kind of doing the
same thing and so that's kind ofI do think that's first.
If you're pre-launch and you'renot down this road yet, it's hey
(08:50):
, have an honest conversationwith the people in your
community.
The people have already startedthese with your own heart to
say do I want to do this Causethis is about my ego and I want
to say something, or am I doingthis because I really want to
solve a problem?
And that's a gut check for alot of folks.
But I would start there and say, hey, is someone already
solving this need in a prettyprofound way in our community?
(09:10):
If it's not, and if you feellike you actually have a pretty
radical approach, the firstthing I do is really just start
intentionally havingconversations.
And what I don't mean by thatis I'm going to have five
coffees with people who arealready friends and then say,
yep, I got the validation I need.
There's a need in the community.
That's not what I mean.
That's often what we call thatlike the mom test, like
(09:31):
everyone's mom is going to sayit's a great idea.
Sure, all your friends aregoing to say, right, of course,
it's going to be a huge hit andyou'll be bigger than world
vision.
That's what they're all goingto say.
What I mean is go have 20, 30conversations with people who
would know in the community, whodon't actually have a personal
attachment to you at all, andthen log all those conversations
.
This is kind of like thatdata-driven techie kind of
(09:53):
approach.
Right, it's like you're loggingeverything and saying, okay,
what was their actual feedback?
Have a set of questions builtout that you're going to ask and
actually get real feedback fromthem.
Bonus points, because I'm liketech nerd If you can do it via
Zoom and have AI record it foryou, then you don't have to do
all the note taking.
They can just auto populateinto a Google Sheet.
Great, do that.
But that would be.
(10:13):
Step one is actually almost runa mini focus group of people
who are not going toautomatically give you yeses and
figure out is there an actualneed for this community need?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
for this community.
I agree with you.
There might be some people whoare a little heart hurt at the
moment.
For sure, love you so much, loveyou so much and I applaud you
and your willingness to like tryand make the world a better
place.
But we've talked to so manyfolks on the podcast about the
importance of collaboration andthis idea that we don't need 10
(10:44):
organizations that are doing thesame thing when what would
happen if you all workedtogether to accomplish that goal
.
So I love that call out forcollaboration.
I think that's a great place tostart.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Yeah.
So that's where I would start.
I would start with see if youcan collaborate.
If not, if there are definitelypeople out there who have a
super unique organization, theywant to start.
That is solving a specificproblem that isn't being solved
other places.
And once you get to that point,then just be objective with the
feedback you get and don't kindof stack the deck in your favor
to get what you want, butactually get real feedback
(11:25):
because it's going to save, makea salary for five years and the
reality is it's probably notgoing to get off the ground
because they didn't do the hardwork in the first place to say,
hey, is there really a viableneed for this?
If we can save someone fiveyears of heartache and have them
partner with a ministry that'salready doing great stuff and
they get to still see the changethey want to affect in the
world, that's a win.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's a great call.
So to me, then, the flip sideof that is maybe an organization
that is.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Actually, I'm going to do two and you can decide
which one you'd like to answerfirst.
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Because I think that there are organizations out
there who have maybe they'vefounded, they've scaled, they're
trying to whatever, but lean isnot the word that they would
use to describe themselves.
Yeah right, and maybe we gotahead of ourselves and we're
kind of finding ourselves in atight spot.
The other side of that rate isthat there are a number of
(12:21):
organizations out there, thanksto a lot of grant funding being
cut, who all of a sudden findthemselves in a position where
they have to be leaner than theyare used to being, and so I'd
love to have your take on bothof those.
If you happen to find yourselfin those situations, what does
it look like to lead effectivelyand to keep moving the mission
(12:45):
forward If you maybe skipped thelean step at the beginning?
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Right, right.
So yeah, two kind of differentscenarios, but both kind of the
same issue, which is you'regoing to find yourself with an
organization that, frankly,probably has too much If we're
trying for lean probably toomuch bloat.
Right, there's nine layers ofdecision making and I was
talking to the organization theother day that like to move one
tech solution, like that's goingto be a five-year process for
(13:11):
us and they're big, but still incorporate world, like nothing
takes, like you're not, it'slike you can yeah, it's not
going to take you five years,trust me.
And so for both of those typesof organizations that you laid
out, if you're not kind ofrunning a lean approach, you're
both kind of in a stage where,if you're honest, you'd say
we're probably a little bloated.
Or maybe we're not bloated inthe sense of staffing, right,
(13:33):
because a lot of people think,oh well, no, our staff is
stretched, we're all crushing it, we're working, you know, 60,
70 hour weeks, like how couldyou say we're bloated?
I don't mean bloated just likestaffing, I mean like decision
making bloat, that it takes waytoo long to get the smallest
campaign through.
So in both of those cases, Ithink the first step is to start
(13:56):
trying to institute a culturethat's okay with failure, which
is not usually what anyone wantsto hear, because no one wants
to be the person on their KPIreporting at the end of the
quarter that says, hey, wefailed right, that's not good
for anyone.
Kpi reporting at the end of thequarter that says, hey, we
failed right, that's not goodfor anyone.
But organizations shifting aculture to celebrate failures if
(14:17):
they're the right kinds offailures, not just like, hey, we
didn't meet budget this year,that's not the kind of failures
I'm talking about.
I'm talking about failures thatare hey, we're going to try a
new thing.
We have no idea if this isgoing to work or not, but we've
gotten great feedback from ourdonors on this.
We want to try it for six weeks, see what happens, and then,
hey, it failed.
Hey, we learned something.
And they don't get chastisedfor it, they don't get.
It's not getting written up ina performance review, it's not
(14:39):
something that makes peoplethink in the organization oh,
you're not doing it right.
Because the reality is most ofthe time when you're working
lean and fast, you're going tofail more often than you succeed
.
And the sooner yourorganization gets comfortable
with the fact that noteverything is going to work, and
that's okay, because when itdoes work we're going to have
rocket ship growth on it.
(14:59):
That's kind of what we're after.
Is this approach of hey, fail,test, fail fast, celebrate the
failure and say, hey, we learneda lot, we know what we're not
going to do now, don't put toomany resources at it and then
move on to the next thing andkeep iterating?
So that's kind of the firstapproach I'd say is like senior
leadership, whether you're theED, whether you're on the board,
(15:19):
whether you're at a VP role,you've got to switch your
mindset to say failure is notfinal and failure is actually a
massive opportunity if weapproach it the right way.
So that's the first thing I'dsay is get more comfortable with
failure.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Ever feel like you're stuck managing programs in
spreadsheets and scatteredsystems?
Apricot by Bonterra is asmarter, faster way for
nonprofits to track outcomes,simplify reporting and unlock
more funding.
With tools built for realnonprofit workflows and trusted
by over 3,400 organizations, ithelps your team grow your impact
(16:00):
and better serve your community.
You can meet us atBonterratechcom.
Slash nonprofit hub today.
Slash nonprofit hub today.
I want to go back to a wordthat you just said, One because
so I came from a for-profitcompany as well, where the
(16:21):
mindset was we win or we learn.
Yep, Right, there's no losing.
That's right.
We win or we learn.
Um, but you used a word therethat I think, especially in like
the for-profit tech space, isjust part of the culture and
part of the norm that I don'tknow has necessarily found its
(16:42):
way to non-profit culture yet,and that is iteration.
Yeah, absolutely so this yeah,absolutely.
So this idea that I have to, ifI'm going to launch something,
it has to be the full, 100%scope.
It has to be perfect, it has tobe and I'm talking about not
even necessarily your fullprogram that you're launching as
(17:02):
a nonprofit but if I'm going tolaunch any piece, it has to be
100%, complete and totallyperfect.
Man, that's a mindset I wouldlove to see us get rid of in the
nonprofit sector and learn alittle bit more from the
for-profit side.
So talk a little bit more aboutwhat iteration looks like from
a practical standpoint.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yeah, so two terms I'm going to use so one probably
heard it before, some may nothave which is MVP, so that's a
classic kind of tech termminimum viable product, right,
so like what?
is the most valuable player notmost valuable player, although
that's a really great one too,if you're sports.
I learned long ago as a pastor,though, that sports metaphors
just always fall flat.
I'd always be.
(17:41):
And then baseball does it.
And then everyone like, perhapsI don't know.
So no sports metaphors, but mvminimum viable product.
This is not like every bell andwhistle on it.
So let's say, like, let me justuse a really tactical example
of what, like MVP building canlook like, cause I know we're
kind of going high level metaright now, and so there may be
some people out there listeningto be like I don't even know
(18:02):
what you mean when you say that.
Like what does that even looklike?
So let me give you an exampleof something that we do as a
company for clients a lot, and Ithink it's really helpful.
So, before we launch campaignsfor a client, we are going to
get a list of about 15 to 20kind of like key messaging
headlines.
So we call them almost like thevalue, key value proposition of
(18:22):
the campaign.
But instead of just launchingwith one and then AB testing on
the backend to figure out like,oh, which one's the winner with
five different landing pagesright, which is a lot of work.
We do the opposite, which is weactually go ahead of time and
we will build out just like themost basic, like blue background
with text on it, headline copy,and then we'll run like 15 to
(18:44):
20 of those on meta as ads,right, with a $50 ad spend, like
dirt cheap new design skillsneeded, like you can do this in
Canva in 10 minutes.
And then what we'll do is we'llliterally just run all those
individuals as part of thecampaign as an ad set and figure
out which one gets the mostclicks, because what we're
testing for is like intent fromthe audience, of which one
(19:05):
captures their attention.
And so we know if something youknow.
You see 15, 20 of them.
Okay, 12 of these no oneclicked on, but three of them
got three clicks and one of themgot seven clicks.
Ding, ding, we have a winner.
That's a minimum viable productfor like a campaign launch to
try to like test messaging whereyou're saying, hey, how can we
do this really cheap, reallyfast, with a small audience,
(19:27):
cause we're not running it toour entire ads audience like a
few hundred people just to see,right, and so that's like a
tactile example of whatiteration looks like.
And then we're able to say,okay, well, now we know the
winner, now let's put that inplace and see a lift for our
campaigns.
So there are examples like thatwhere what you're looking for
is that minimum viable productand then there is.
This is kind of a thing likeeven amongst my friends who talk
(19:48):
about tech and nonprofit spacebut aren't necessarily in the
tech space there's a little bitof development on this recently
that I have to kind of mention,which is we're moving from MVP
to MAP or map, which is it's notenough anymore to have a
minimum viable product.
Viable almost has this like ducttape, bubble gum, like kind of
crummy version of it connotation.
(20:09):
But we're moving because theworld has been so cannibalized
by software and user experienceand design and it's just like
even though, like you know,smallest nonprofit actually is
pretty decent looking graphics,now because of Canva we've
actually moved to a phase whereyou have to have a minimum
awesome product, and so I wantto think about that because
that's kind of what we're seeingin tech space.
It's not enough just to have thetrue bubblegum and duct tape.
It's at least got to be awell-built version, like small
(20:34):
version right, so people willput up with not having enough
features, or maybe the programisn't fully built out yet, but
it can't be like no clarity toit at all, like your campaign
can't, just it can't have areally poorly designed landing
page, or like terrible copyright, like it's got to be good, it
just doesn't have to be all thebells and whistles right away.
So that's, it's kind of adistinction.
(20:55):
But something I want to touchon is like I'm not saying be
cheap and crummy with it.
I'm saying like do itprofessionally, do with
excellence, but scaled downright, like far scaled down from
what your dream kind ofscenario is, far scaled down
from what your dream kind ofscenario is.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
So I'm thinking about that too from a like a
programmatic side.
Right On the things that thenonprofit does, there was a, an
organization that I was workingwith here in Pittsburgh that was
trying to start a charterschool.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Cool.
In an ideal world, 15 yearsfrom now, they would love to be
offering pre-k through 12thgrade.
Great yep.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
But we're not going to open with pre-k to 12th grade
, right exactly, and so I thinkwe go raise 40 million dollars
to go through that so theystarted with pre-k, exactly.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
They did one year pre-k and then when those people
, when those folks were done,those little children were done
and ready to go to kindergarten,now we have pre-K and
kindergarten, yeah Right.
And then each year, from therewe continue to add a grade as
those kids continue to get older, and that's not to say that new
kids can't come to second grade.
We hope they do Right, right,add instead of.
(22:13):
And so I think maybe that'slike a programmatical, tactical
approach instead of the campaignside, to really kind of help
wrap our minds around that too.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Well, and like a lot of people have to fight, is this
idea because you're going toget a donor who comes in and
says, yeah, I'd be a hundredthousand dollars if you have a
third grade right now for mythird grader Right, and you have
to say no we're not there yet.
Not our focus right now.
We could do a million.
Yes, we could do a millionthings, but we're just pre-K
right now.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah, and I think that's man.
That's such the tension,because who wants to say no to a
donor who wants to do thethings?
Speaker 2 (22:45):
right who wants to do all the things, but the problem
is that now, as much as thatdonor wants to give you the gift
, now you're down a road thatyou can't undo.
Right, because now you havethird grade, which means you
have to have second grade andfirst grade, and you probably
need fourth grade and fifthgrade too now, because if you're
going to have third grade, youjust got to throw that in.
So the temptation it's kind oflike the, you know, when someone
(23:07):
like gives me this happens alot like e-com store or some
sort of thing and it's hey, get$40 to spend free or something
like that.
And it's like yeah, but youknow that I'm spending $40, but
I'm actually going to be in a120 by the time I actually get
in your store or finish myshopping cart Right, which is
that's a great deal, but it'sactually not a great deal
because I'm still spending waymore than I had budget spend,
which was zero dollars.
(23:28):
So I think that temptation isthere for a lot of us in
nonprofit world.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yeah, oh, that's so good and such a good reminder of
why None of this happens unlessyou understand your mission.
Yeah absolutely Right.
If we're focused on the missionand that is what's ruling all
of the decision making, then itbecomes a lot easier to iterate,
to scale, to test.
(23:51):
But if we're letting donoropinions, everyone else's
opinions, board opinions, allthe different factions be the
deciding factor, then, man, it'sso hard to stick to that lean
model.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Yeah, and it's pretty critical in that iteration,
like, since we're talkingiteration, the iteration should
be pretty ruthless about data onthat.
That's why I said I mentionedlike, hey, don't bring your
friends in, don't bring thedonor who already wants to see
this thing done, because ofcourse they're going to tell you
, yeah, you should absolutely dothis, you should go all in on
it.
You have to be pretty ruthless,especially as we're talking to
(24:25):
these organizations that alreadyexist, about saying, okay, I
know someone wants that tohappen or that was our vision,
but like all of our feedbackfrom the people that were all
the key stakeholders, right,whether that's donors, whether
that's community is saying theydon't actually want this, or
maybe they want it, but theywant it in this way instead of
that way.
Or maybe they say, yes, amen,we want this a thousand percent,
(24:48):
but not right now, right, likethere's so many variables there
and so you have to be prettyruthless with sticking to what's
the data actually telling usand you're actually logging that
data and actually having asystem for that.
And then the other thing ifyou're an organization that
already exists and this is thehard part, so sorry, to be like
the bearer of bad news today islike sometimes if you're trying
to get lean and try to establishsomething like this, you have
(25:09):
to kill some sacred cows, right?
We all have been a part oforganizations where there are
programs that everyone knows arenot net positive for the
organization and yet we keepthem because no one wants to
have the hard conversations.
That thing is just a money pitand it's not actually serving
anyone well, or maybe the ROI isterrible on it and we could
(25:30):
actually serve way better if wewould shift the model.
So you have to be willing tokill in those other
organizations, you have to notbe afraid of failure, and then
you also have to be able to comein and say, hey, there's some
sacred cows here that we'regoing to be okay with killing.
And yeah, one of my mentorsused to always tell me like the
pain of staying the same has toget to a point where it eclipses
the pain of change for anorganization to actually move.
(25:51):
And so having you know ifyou're part of a leadership team
it's having that conversationof hey, is the pain of staying
the same so great right now thatwe actually want to change, or
are we still like in a kind ofcomfy spot where we're not
really willing to change yet.
Because I used to be a pastor, Idid this, made this mistake a
lot, killed some sacred cowsbefore their time to be killed
(26:11):
and then I got killed and so youhave to be wise about, like,
how you kill those.
So walk wisely into killingthose sacred cows.
But if you're at a point whereyou know, hey, we need to do
this, you have organizationalbuy-in.
You can't be afraid to say, hey, we're going to kill some stuff
if it's not working anymore andjust have that kind of ruthless
approach to iteration if youwant the organization to
continue to grow.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Man Matt, I realize a lot of it has been maybe the
bearer of bad news, but I thinkit's so wonderful.
Man, such good stuff, so as weclose two things One.
If man, such good stuff, so aswe close two things One.
If somebody wanted to learnmore or connect with you, learn
more about Share, how do we goabout doing that?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Oh yeah, absolutely so.
If you want to connect with mepersonally, linkedin is usually
the best way.
Just LinkedIn, search MattLombardi and I'll probably pop
up pretty fast, especially ifyou have any kind of nonprofit
connections.
So that's the best waypersonally for me.
If you want to find out moreabout share, you can go to share
talentco.
No M on that, just sharetalentco.
You'll be in a good spot there.
But LinkedIn, honestly, isusually the best thing.
(27:10):
I love just making connectionswith people, hopping on, having
conversations and just seeingwhat other folks in the
nonprofit space are up to.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
So LinkedIn is the best you can check out.
The company site share talentcoVery good and there's some
exciting things coming for sharepretty soon, are, yeah?
So give us like a tiny teasethere.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Give me a little tiny teaser.
So we're kind of getting backto our roots as a tech company.
We'll still have the agency,still gonna be doing great work
with clients, but we'rerelaunching our original
platform a little bit differentversion of it Yet again.
This is one of those thingslike don't be afraid to say I
was stupid, I was wrong.
In the past.
We thought, oh, when we launchedit, that we're going to get all
these people who want to postprojects and work with people
and do financial transactions,we realized that just wasn't the
(27:49):
market.
Like, people don't really wantthat.
What they really wanted wasconnection and that's what they
were after.
And so it'll be kind of a newhub where folks in the space who
are working for the good of theworld on a cause get to kind of
set a profile, get inspired byother people's work, share their
work and kind of create aprofessional hub for people
working in the nonprofit spaceto share their work.
(28:09):
So excited for that coming inthe days ahead.
We're a few months out on that,but yeah, we're in private beta
on it right now.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Very cool, very good, all right.
So my closing question thisseason has been if you could
give one piece of wisdom.
This season has been if youcould give one piece of wisdom
encouragement, enlightenment, nopressure to the nonprofit
professionals of our audience.
What was your one takeaway?
What's your one piece of wisdomfor today?
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah, you don't need more resources, you need to ask
better questions.
A lot of times we think if Ijust had like we're chasing the
magic bullet of another teammember if I had more hours in
the day, if I had this, if I hadmore resources, that'd be
better.
And I think we need to askbetter questions of ourselves,
(28:57):
of the people we're trying toserve, of the communities we're
in, of our donors and actuallybuild with them instead of
building for them.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Oh, so good, Matt.
Thank you so much.
This has been reallyinteresting.
I think it's going to be reallyhelpful to a lot of our
listeners.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Enjoyed it, megan, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
My pleasure, this has been another episode of the
Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast.
I'm your host, megan Spear, andwe'll see you next time.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.