Nonprofit Leadership

Renata (00:09.644)
I decided to reach out to you because I was looking at your LinkedIn profile and I saw that you wrote a book and I really wanted to know more about this because I feel like every one of us feels like there’s a book inside us, but not a lot of people go out and

Nick Grono (00:11.96)
Hehehehehe

Renata (00:38.77)
write it and publish it. So can you tell me how the origin story of that book?

Nick Grono (00:44.611)
Yeah, it’s so interesting because if you’d asked me 10 years ago, what would be the book I would write, I always had this idea in my mind. I’ve traveled around the world a lot to war zones and everywhere and I’m a keen swimmer. And so I always find out, I find a swimming pool wherever I go and I found swimming pools in fascinating places from, you know, Kabul to art deco swimming pools in Brussels. And so I always thought there would be a book that would use swimming pools as an insight into culture.

because it’s so different in many places anyway. But the reality is writing a book is really, really hard. And so we all have these ideas. In the case of this book that I’ve just written on nonprofit leadership, there are a number of factors behind me deciding to write it. I started working in the nonprofit sector about 20 years ago. And before that, I had a decade working as a commercial lawyer in Australia. I worked at Goldman Sachs in London for a couple of years. I worked as a senior political advisor in the Australian government.

Renata (01:12.798)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Grono (01:42.478)
And then I moved over to the nonprofit sector. you know, the first thing that struck me was that the sector is quite leadership in the sector is quite different from particularly commercial leadership. And we can talk more about that. The other thing that really struck me is that there’s just not a lot out there that’s written for the nonprofit leader in a kind of practical hands on kind of way. There’s some theoretical text, there’s lots of business, there’s thousands of business leadership books.

but because of the different nature of nonprofit, they’re not as useful as they could otherwise be. So there’s a lack of material. And then finally, know, whenever I meet up with nonprofit leaders, we end up talking about the shared challenges of the work. And there’s often a huge relief to discover that someone else is sharing the problems that we are sharing, be it around relationships with boards or fundraising or activist staff. And so, and I think there’s often a belief that, you know, we’re struggling with these problems alone.

So I was very fortunate about two years ago to get a sabbatical for just over three, three and a half months. And so I decided to use that time to start trying to set down some of my thinking and ideas and that turned into the book.

Renata (02:54.142)
That’s a great idea. you had me at swimming pool though. You have to write that other book.

Nick Grono (03:00.82)
I know, I know. I just, I have no photos. So I have to, I have to retrace my steps to get these beautiful photos of amazing pools. Yeah. Yeah.

Renata (03:08.644)
It has to be a coffee table book, for sure. Lots of photos. I wish I had your book back in the day when I was in, you know, nonprofit leadership roles. You’re right. It’s a very lonely place to be. And I was lucky at the time to be introduced to people that, you know, were just a few years ahead of me.

and mentored me or coached me and helped me with some of the issues I was facing. So you mentioned that the nonprofits are not exactly run like businesses. Should they? Is there a case for them to be run like businesses or is there a case for them to be quite different?

Nick Grono (03:56.259)
so it’s such an interesting issue because, you know, for a start, one of my kind of pet peeves in the business is when I hear from business leaders that all nonprofits need is to be run more like businesses. And I think, well, hold it, that shows a lack of understanding about the different natures of business. And I’ll explain the key ones, right? And it’s all around purpose and impact. And purpose of a business generally is to maximize.

financial returns. You may want to do other things that are good, but usually you’re being judged on whether you’re financially successful or not. And so your impact is a measurement of your financial success. And there are lots of advantages to that, including the fact that you can compare performance between different businesses, and they can be in completely different sectors. You you can compare the performance of Facebook against Boeing. Now, when you work for a nonprofit, your purpose is to change the world.

on hunger or poverty or slavery, the issue I work on, and your impact is the degree of change that you make. That’s really difficult to measure. How do you, if you’re a small nonprofit working on tackling poverty, global poverty, how do you measure your impact? It’s a real challenge. And it’s even harder to compare performance of one anti-poverty organization against another anti-poverty organization, let alone an anti-poverty organization’s impact against

and art galleries impact, but they’re both nonprofits. All right. So whereas all businesses and the reason that that’s important is because measuring performance helps a degree of accountability and it helps a degree of discipline. And so while you have that in a business world, you have to look to other measures and other ways of assessing performance in a nonprofit world. So it can be a lot harder to know how you’re doing. It can be a lot harder to drive accountability and performance within the organization.

Renata (05:28.564)
Yeah.

Nick Grono (05:53.302)
There is a lot less, often nonprofits are a lot less hierarchical. Staff have a lot more influence. So they’re different and neither is good nor bad. I’m not saying that they’re just different. And if you don’t understand the difference, then you’ll come in thinking you can run, you know, a nonprofit like a business and you will fail miserably if you’re not careful.

Renata (06:14.088)
Yeah, you touched on something in your answer that I think has an added layer of a challenge for you, which is you compared the sort of work that you do with slavery with, let’s say, an art gallery. And you always want an art gallery to exist, even if it’s a nonprofit art gallery. But when you are working to correct injustice and you’re working to address an important cause,

you want that issue to disappear. Right. So that is an interesting way of running an organization so that, you know, hopefully in in one generation you can get rid of poverty, hunger, slavery and so on. And do you find that leaders have often to deal with that balance between their personal ambitions?

driving growth, scaling for impact, which might come even naturally to them as part of their leadership trait with the fact that, well, you know, but then we need to unwind all of this and shut shop one day. I’m curious to know if that affects you and others.

Nick Grono (07:28.024)
It’s not a huge issue. I mean, you’re absolutely right. Of course, the ambition of every nonprofit leader trying to make the world a better place, be it their town, their city, their state, the country globally, should be to do themselves out of a job. But the reality is that most of the problems we’re grappling with are so huge that it’s just not a realistic prospect. I slavery has been with us for thousands of years. There are some 50 million people in slavery around the world today. No matter how good we are,

In my organization, to give you an example, the estimated annual profits from modern slavery and human trafficking a year are over $250 billion. And my organization has a budget of $25 million. And we are probably about the second or third largest anti-slavery organization working globally. So $25 million versus $250 billion. No matter how good we are, there’s a limit to what we do. I think that…

Renata (08:07.146)
Wow.

Nick Grono (08:23.841)
The more important issue is for the nonprofit world, given the scale of the problems, we have to find ways to collaborate because there is no way my organization working on its own can make it a huge dent in this problem. And I think nonprofit leaders often struggle with collaboration. And our focus should be on what is the change we’re trying to achieve, whether it’s achieved by us or by others, shouldn’t be

Renata (08:38.622)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Grono (08:50.815)
huge issue for us, right? It should be how do we address global slavery or poverty? And I think a lot of nonprofit leaders, a lot of leaders full stop struggle with collaboration. In the business world often you’re not required to collaborate, right? You’re required to dominate your space and be the most successful. Whereas in a nonprofit world, we will only succeed through collaboration. So again, it’s an example of really different incentives in the space.

Renata (09:16.263)
That’s an interesting point and it made me think about organizations out there that now, I mean not now, it’s been going on for maybe a decade, trying to rank and evaluate the work of different nonprofit organizations through different types of assessments.

How is that helping? Is it helping the sector or is it making things harder by the way that they choose their criteria to assess the work of nonprofits?

Nick Grono (09:52.335)
Yeah, it’s a great question. mean, getting back to my earlier answer, it’s really difficult to assess the impact of nonprofits, which doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, don’t get me wrong. so, again, I’ll just use my organization because it’s easy to talk about. We work to tackle modern slavery in countries like Ethiopia and Myanmar and Brazil by working with local grassroots partners because we think you can drive change from the bottom up. Right. And then there are other great organizations like Walk Free in Australia that work by

Renata (09:58.536)
Yeah.

Renata (10:16.19)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Grono (10:21.221)
creating a global index and engaging with the UN, really, really important work. How do you compare the performance of those two organizations against each other? Because they’re doing completely different things. So what I think you have to do when you’re looking at the performance of nonprofits is encourage them, and this is the board’s role, to set ambitious goals and then to work out how they are performing against those goals. That’s the best in class, but it’s not easy.

So it is a challenge, but it’s one we all have to confront because we need to try and find some way of assessing how we’re doing. if I have a funder giving us significant, if you have a funder who is looking where to invest their money most effectively, they want to be able to understand, does it make more sense to invest here? Does it make more sense to invest there? So we have to be able to tell a story around impact, understanding that it’s never going to be as rigorous and objective as

Renata (10:55.785)
Yeah.

Nick Grono (11:20.049)
financial performance. And that leads to an issue that and again, this is one of my pet, any CEO in a nonprofit will talk about overheads. Right. So overheads are the cost, the input costs, the cost of our HR, the cost of fundraising, and those can be easily measured, right? In our case, it’s about 14 % admin and fundraising as a percentage of the overall spend. And what some funders do is because you can measure overhead, they try and compare nonprofits by their overheads.

Renata (11:21.737)
Mm-hmm.

Renata (11:49.971)
Yes.

Nick Grono (11:50.429)
It’s a ridiculous measure to compare. It’s an input. You wouldn’t compare, to use my answer example, Facebook against Boeing by the cost of their HR function and the cost of their finance function. You look at their profits, you look at their impact, right? And also your overheads, if you are investing them wisely, are an investment in the infrastructure of the organization. You wouldn’t measure the performance of a…

Renata (12:04.159)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Grono (12:18.873)
a fire patrol, know, fire brigade by the cost of their fire engines, you would look at their success in putting out fires. So, but the reason people do it is because they’re trying to seize onto something that can be measured. And overhead is something easy to measure. It’s just a fallacy because it’s an input, not an output.

Renata (12:37.29)
Yeah, that is such a great point. Nobody raised that on my board when I was sort of asking for more money for my overheads back in the day. I also wanted to talk to you about

volatile environments like the one we have right now, does that affect funding for nonprofits? When you have wars, when you have major elections happening in so many countries, does that make an impact on your ability to run your operations?

Nick Grono (13:15.079)
It does, and it does in positive and negative ways. You know, sometimes an emergency is a really powerful way of mobilizing funding because funders, philanthropists understand there is a crying need. So when you have major earthquakes or conflicts break out, often it is a very powerful way of mobilizing. I mean, to take another example, during COVID, I was really worried about the impact that COVID might have on funders because a lot of funders

were worried about their own economic circumstances, particularly companies, and scaling back. Well, in our case, we found our funders like Minduru and Human United gave us more money because they understood the urgency of the problem and the scale of the issues that our communities that we were serving were facing. So for us, it was a way of mobilizing greater funding, not less. On the other hand, you you have things like the US presidential election. We receive funding from US funders.

A lot of them are devoting significant chunks of their funding to invest in the political process in the US. Climate change. If you’re working in the human rights space, one of the slightly concerning trends we’ve seen is that there’s less investment in human rights and a much bigger investment in climate. And climate is an existential issue, but so are human rights. And so you have a limited pot. Well…

Renata (14:21.042)
Of course.

Nick Grono (14:43.017)
In theory, we have a limited pot. I mean, my other concern is, and again, I’m talking more about the US situation because it has the biggest pot of philanthropic money and probably sets examples elsewhere. A lot of money is tied up in funders, endowments and what are called donor advice funds where they’re not, they’re theoretically charitable funding, but they’re not actually being spent. So I think, you know, one of the campaign issues should be to encourage donors to spend a greater proportion of their funding.

rather than just sitting on it because there is so much money out there and so much capital locked up.

Renata (15:13.467)
Mm-hmm.

Renata (15:17.17)
Yeah. Is funding university programs a problem, do you think? You know, they are not exactly nonprofits and a huge amount of alumni money goes back into alma mater. Is that something you sort of think about from time to time?

Nick Grono (15:42.102)
I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. went to, I did my undergrad at Sydney University and it was, I’m old enough that it was a different time then. And I don’t think there was huge amounts of kind of alumni. They’ve all become a lot more professional about raising their funding then. I was fortunate enough to do a one year master’s degree in the U.S. at Princeton University, which must be one of the wealthiest universities in the world. And the money on offer was beyond comprehension. So yes, there can be too much money.

Renata (15:48.647)
huh.

Renata (15:55.156)
No.

Renata (16:06.118)
Absolutely.

Nick Grono (16:12.214)
you know, I was extremely fortunate because because of their financial situation, not only did I get a fellowship, but they paid all my living expenses and gave me the opportunity to move from a career as a lawyer and working for government into the nonprofit space. So I like to think that I’ve somehow repaid the the investment, but but the amount of money that, you know, a small wealthy school had and the lack of distribution because, you know, in the US,

Renata (16:31.399)
Yeah.

Nick Grono (16:42.211)
the Ivy League universities have tens of billions, if not more, in endowments. But then you have community colleges which are reaching the more socioeconomically disadvantaged kids who have limited money. So for me, it’s not so much about the amount of money going in. It would always be about the distribution and the equity of the distribution.

Renata (16:49.46)
Mm-hmm.

Renata (17:07.783)
I’m interested in what you said about that Princeton program allowing you to make the transition into the nonprofit world. A lot of my clients in for-profit and corporate want to do that transition. They don’t seem to hit the mark at job interviews. And I think there is maybe a click, but maybe a lack of understanding and a lack of narrative.

to support that transition and make them make better statements. Maybe they’re not ready yet. How would you advise people that work in the corporate sector if they are really keen to work in nonprofits? mean, besides buying your book, which is a no brainer, what are your other recommendations?

Nick Grono (17:56.484)
I’m glad you suggested that because that was going to be my first book or reading my book, preferably buying but reading it. I think the starting point is to understand the different nature of the organizations. And I’ve pointed that out. I think that business executives, successful business executives have a huge amount to offer to the nonprofit sector, particularly when it comes to boards. We are actively seeking board members who have kind of the discipline of

Renata (17:58.044)
Of course. Yeah.

Nick Grono (18:24.761)
the corporate world, around financials in particular, and around, you know, kind of income expenditure and how to manage it, because we just, you know, it’s just really useful experience. And, and because they come from a world that is much more focused on measurable impact, having that, having that approach is helpful, as long as you understand that it’s different, you know, if you come in and say, but you must do it exactly the way we did it, well, that’s not going to get anywhere. But if you say,

We need discipline and we need to understand the numbers and we need to understand the impact and we need clear goals. That’s really, really helpful. So I think starting point would always be, well, explore, there are hundreds of thousands of nonprofits in Australia, right? From small parent and teacher associations to food banks. If you’re really interested, start by volunteering, because you’ll always be a volunteer on the board.

Renata (19:04.586)
Mm.

Renata (19:17.607)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Grono (19:17.802)
with business experience, with an ability perhaps to leverage relationships. I mean, the other thing that is small nonprofits, all nonprofits, but small nonprofits in particular, are always looking for funding. And you don’t have to bring funding, but you can introduce networks, you can find others that are interested in the work, you can tell the stories about the power of the work. You know, when my friends are working, supporting local community associations and organizations, then I’m always open to providing a donation or two. So you can bring

that kind of expertise, the discipline that you have from a commercial career, you can leverage your networks, you can work on boards. And once you’ve had some board experience, the transition to working is much smaller. So I think it’s just going in with that understanding that it’s a different world, but you can absolutely equip yourself for it by reading my book and by volunteering.

Renata (20:01.074)
Hmm.

Renata (20:07.668)
Mmm.

Renata (20:11.038)
You know, it’s a curiosity here that I want to add for the listeners. The framework that I use for my coaching program is a long term strategic implementation plan that I learned when I did my Harvard School of Government program. So that idea of having that long term implementation plan and working towards a goal that’s far in the future and, you know, those long term goals then

inform the inputs and the activities and the outputs and the short term, medium term and long term results is basically what we can do to have great careers. If you want to take control of your career and don’t want it to derail and you know don’t feel that you’re always at the mercy of an employer or socio-economic

issues affecting the job market and so forth.

Nick Grono (21:12.489)
Absolutely. mean, in my own case, I have now been the CEO of the Freedom Fund for 10 years. And I won’t be around for too much longer because I think there’s a natural lifespan. And part of the reason for writing the book was to give myself options post this career if I want to work as an advisor and as a coach and other things. So it’s a long term career planning process with it’s not a set plan. It’s more just a direction of travel. But you know, that’s

Renata (21:39.508)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Grono (21:41.606)
Yeah, that was part of the thinking when I set out to do this two or three years ago.

Renata (21:45.726)
That’s a great idea and I’m interested in that sort of idea of a life cycle because 10 years is quite a long time for CEOs, at least in the corporate sector now. The 10 years are much shorter, three to five years. Do you think in the nonprofit sector the 10 years are longer? What’s your experience?

Nick Grono (22:08.1)
No, think well, so certainly in a nonprofit set, you can get some very long 10 years, you know, I know, some high profile CEOs who were in a nonprofit sector who were CEOs for 20 or 30 years. And I have to believe that that’s too long, no matter how successful you are. There is some I looked at it for my book, and there is some interesting research around business leaders, know, business leaders.

Renata (22:13.578)
Hmm.

Nick Grono (22:33.643)
Some of the most successful business leaders are most successful from kind 10 to 15 years, but they’re unusual. I mean, we’re talking about like Jamie Dimon, right? JP Morgan, who’s been in, I don’t know, or Bob Iger, who was at Disney for a long tenure.

Renata (22:42.11)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Grono (22:49.941)
But the risk of course is that you just become solidified in your role. There is some research too about nonprofits with long tenured CEOs doing well, but I worry in those cases about the succession. And what you really need to look at is how the organizations do after they leave because, know, if the organization is so, and I’m conscious of it in my case, if the organization is so led to, I was the first CEO, I was employee number one. my,

way of working has been stamped on the organisation. And I’ll be acutely conscious of that when it comes to a transition and how we support that. so I think there’s no hard and fast rule. I think you can ask yourself questions. Is the organisation still outperforming? Does it have a strong culture? know, are staff supportive of the way things are going? Are your funders there? Then, but…

but it can be too easy to also justify to yourself why you should stay in office. And this is where the role of boards is so important, right? Because it’s the board’s job to be saying to the CEO, let’s have a discussion. What’s the right time? What’s the planning? How’s the organization performing? Yeah.

Renata (23:49.033)
Yeah.

Renata (24:03.635)
And I’m glad you brought up boards because it is, you know, for some CEOs up and coming, starting in the nonprofit sector, a very challenging relationship that they need to build over time as soon as possible with the chair, with the board. I really wanted to hear from you because you’ve served on boards and you report to boards and

My experience and the experience that I see in my clients is that non-profit boards are a league of their own compared to corporate boards, right? So there’s usually a huge commitment, some emotional attachment to the cause and financial attachments as well, a lot of support and funding that comes from board members to the cause. So what do you think is

some of the most critical aspects that a CEO needs to be aware of as it starts to develop this important report with the board and build that alignment.

Nick Grono (25:08.202)
It’s a great question. And whenever I talk to other CEOs, in most of the cases, one of their biggest stresses is relationship with the board, not everyone, right, but often. And I think that happens for a number of reasons. First of all, nonprofit boards are volunteer boards. So you are asking someone to give up their time. Because they are volunteer boards,

Renata (25:17.066)
you.

Nick Grono (25:31.851)
They have usually a fraction of the knowledge of the day-to-day working of the organisation compared to the CEO and staff, understandably, right? If you are a board member meeting four times a year for three-hour board meetings, there’s 12 hours a year that you’re spending on the business. And I’m sure there’s more by the time you kind of read the papers and et cetera, et cetera, and some will meet more and some will be less. But you know, whereas I’m spending 50, 60 hours a week thinking about the work.

And so, but so they have board members have a fraction of the day to day knowledge of the organization and the work, but they have huge power. So have all the power and, and, and a much more, a much further away from the work. And that can lead to real challenges, particularly if the relationship isn’t managed. So the power of the boards is immense, right? They hire and fire the CEO, they approve the budget, they can manage the risk, they approve the strategy, right? These are big issues.

Renata (26:01.962)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Grono (26:31.522)
And I think what sometimes happens, there’s a lot of things that happen sometimes, first of all, CEOs just kind of think, well, the board is just there, I have to manage it, and don’t lean into the relationship. And that’s a recipe for disaster. So my number one piece of advice is, you know, treat your board seriously, invest in the relationships, have regular calls, particularly with the CEO, but with other board members, don’t just treat them as part time participants, make sure they know what’s going on. There should be no surprises in the relationship. You should never turn up to a board meeting and drop a bombshell.

or at least I never would, I would make sure if there was something that was really important, I would have already briefed the CEO, briefed other board members if need be. Take them out to the field. know, whatever you’re working on, and us at the field, you the countries we work on, we take our board members out to Brazil or to Nepal next year to Indonesia so that they get to understand the work firsthand, so you can educate your board. And then there’s responsibilities on the board side too, and wearing my board hat.

You know, don’t come in thinking you know everything. Don’t come in thinking that, you know, something looks like it’s not working and without then trying to understand what the reasons for that might be. Don’t assume that you, you know, understand the problem better than those that are working on it day to day. You may have particular skills and, you know, there is a benefit from being removed from the issue. So you can be more objective, but it just requires a bit of kind of understanding on both sides and a lot of investment in a relationship.

Renata (27:53.31)
Mm-hmm.

Renata (27:58.782)
Yeah. Nick, as you were talking about Brazil and going to locations like that, it made me think about burnout and the mental load of being responsible for such an important…

cause and outcomes and reporting back to the board on what you’re doing. Have you struggled with burnout and even potentially mental health as well? A lot of CEOs tell me, not just in the nonprofit, but mainly in the nonprofit sector, that it has really effect there.

mental health and they have burnt out a lot during their tenure as CEOs of nonprofits. Have you addressed that in your book?

Nick Grono (28:54.363)
I have, I talk about, I have a whole chapter on the CEO and including a chapter on the CEO’s need to look after themselves. It’s a very real issue. I mean, you know, in these roles, we work extremely hard. And that’s the same as if you’re working in business or government, you you work phenomenally hard. I worked extremely long hours as a corporate lawyer, extremely long hours at Goldman Sachs. But the difference in a nonprofit world is your commitment to the cause that encourages you, forces you to do more.

Renata (29:01.16)
Yeah.

Nick Grono (29:24.455)
You know, we are working with people, girls who being trafficked into slavery, into brothels, boys are being forced to work in horrendous condition. And you always have this sense, well, if I just do a bit more, I can have more impact. And the issue is so compelling and powerful and distressing that there’s this incentive to do more. And the problem is that, of course, if you do more to the extent that you are burning out,

Renata (29:42.922)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Grono (29:51.418)
you are not functioning effectively. I kind of, you know, in my book, I just say, you have an obligation to look after yourself so that the organization, if I’m burnt out, my organization isn’t running nearly as effective, effectively as it should, we are not having the impact that we should. But there is so much guilt associated with work on poverty and client, you you’re this field, I just have to do a little bit more. And, and, and so you really have to step back, I think, you know, if

Nonprofit leaders have the resources, access to a coach, access to others that can, or peer groups, you don’t even have to have the resources to hire a coach. You know, one of the best things I ever did is work with a small group of kind of like minded leaders so that we could share all of our problems and this understanding that we’re not the only one and get advice from others like Nick, you’re mad or, you know, me advising others, you know, just slow down, step back a bit.

Renata (30:29.395)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Grono (30:46.387)
No, so I’ve often found it extremely draining. I’ve had to step back. In the past, I’ve seen a coach, I’ve seen a psychologist when I was going through a difficult time at work and family challenges. And it’s just like, I need to find the support to enable me to function as effectively as I need to.

Renata (31:04.456)
Yeah, I was lucky in the John Monash Foundation. didn’t feel that at all. mean, it was such an exciting nonprofit to work for. But I served for a short period of time in an advisory board for the Children’s Protection Society here in Victoria. And when they called me to offer me an opportunity to help them.

I had to ask to think about it. I just didn’t know that I could cope having young children on my own. I just felt like I think I need to think about it. It took me 24 hours and I said yes and I worked with them. You know, just because there was a change in government. One of those several changes in government we had back then and they were sort of struggling to find where their funding was going and if they still had any funding. And then I stepped out but…

But I think it’s important to remember that you need to be well in order to, like you said, work with a cause that can really affect you emotionally. And I remember thinking about it and ended up accepting. But I could have just as well said no if I felt like it wasn’t the right time for me.

Nick Grono (32:14.964)
Yeah, and it’s a perfectly legitimate choice. And you know, I mean, working on child protection, working on child sexual abuse, child slavery, trafficking, it particularly if you have kids of your own or not even but you know, it just is so visceral. But then you feel kind of guilty because you can offer as you know, you can contribute. And so it’s always weighing up these and I’m not saying you should feel guilty. I’m just saying that it’s it’s inevitable that you kind of feel like wow, shouldn’t I be doing more?

Renata (32:17.279)
Mm-mm.

Renata (32:28.531)
Yeah.

Renata (32:40.551)
It happens.

Nick Grono (32:44.83)
So it can be very, very tough.

Renata (32:47.658)
Yeah. Well, tell me about the work that you do day to day. I’d love for you to share with the listeners who may be interested in working as a nonprofit leader. Maybe they’re in the corporate sector and thinking I could make that transition. Tell me what it is that you’re I mean, what you can tell us. I know some of it you can’t, but tell us what happens day to day in an organization like the Freedom Fund.

Nick Grono (33:14.178)
So, you know, as a CEO, so the Freedom Fund, we’re 10 years old, we have about 80 staff, we work in 12 countries, about 35 % of our staff are in London, maybe half a dozen in the US and then the rest in the countries that we work in like Brazil and Ethiopia, Kenya, Indonesia. So for a CEO, the job is broken up into parts.

At least half my time is spent fundraising. Foundraising and outreach and probably, you know, close to 60, 70%, depending on how you define it, right? Kind of selling the word of the work that we do, meeting up with donors, taking board members out to see the work, lots of personal engagement, because in the end, if we are successful in raising funds, we can do more. And so I don’t regret it. It’s just, and often particularly with philanthropists,

They want, if they’re making significant donations, they want to engage with the CEO. So that’s just a reality. I embrace that. And then there’s a lot of focus around, you know, the kind of longer term work in the organization around the culture. I am a huge believer in investing in culture, but it requires a lot of engagement and thought about what that means, how you model behaviors, how you build psychological safety. And then there’s the kind of day-to-day firefighting, which I hope to do less of, but you

We, I mean, there’s just been the, the conflict in Lebanon right now. And we weren’t actively working in Lebanon, but we had been looking at whether we could work on child domestic workers in Lebanon. And we had built relationships up with a number of small nonprofits in Lebanon, but thought too much conflict at the moment, we can’t work there. And then, you know, the kind of Israeli incursions into Lebanon and mass migration and a lot of vulnerable people.

on the move and in desperate need of help. So we have just immediately been able to deploy a couple of hundred thousand to 10 of the organisations that we’ve worked with to provide bedding and medicines and shelter for those that are displaced. You so it just, you have to respond really quickly. I had to fly out to Ethiopia a month ago at very short notice because we had some challenges there. So, you know, it’s a combination of long-term and short-term investment in

Nick Grono (35:41.581)
the organisation. It’s also spending time to learn and talk about not just the work, but about issues like collaborative philanthropy and finding the time to step back and do the thinking. you you’ve got the fundraising outreach piece, you’ve got the kind of long term investment in the organisation, you’ve got the kind of short term firefighting, and you’ve got the intellectual piece that you’re trying to kind of grapple with all the time.

Renata (35:54.132)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Grono (36:07.683)
And for most CEOs, that will be at different proportions. Sometimes, you know, everything is firefighting, right? If you’re in middle of a conflict or an emergency, or I’m sure if you’re working on disaster relief in Florida right now, you know, you are utterly consumed with the hurricane there or the bushfires in Australia, it just is overwhelming. At other times, it’s like, how do I invest in the long-term health of my organization so that we are resilient when these situations arise?

Renata (36:07.869)
Yeah.

Renata (36:21.535)
Yeah.

Renata (36:32.87)
Yeah, you’re absolutely right. But I I like your breakdown and I like that you started off by acknowledging that 50, I’m pretty sure it will be somewhat the same for everybody. 50 % of the time is about raising funds and outreach because I think when you are transferring your skills from corporate to nonprofit, you don’t see that and then you want to delegate that to somebody and it never works. So it’s important.

Nick Grono (37:01.165)
No, I start the chapter on a CEO by just saying, you have to be in charge of fundraising. I mean, if you have the perfect fundraiser and funders, great, but it’s your responsibility. If we don’t bring in the money, not only am I laying off staff, but we are not providing funding to organizations that desperately need it. And so, you know, I think any CEO in a nonprofit space who kind of thinks fundraising is beneath me or not my responsibility,

Renata (37:08.162)
good.

Renata (37:21.021)
Yes.

Nick Grono (37:28.667)
is setting their organizations up potentially for failure. It doesn’t mean you have to do it all yourself, in particular if you’re raising funds from the public, have to make sure you’ve got the fundraising machinery and everything else, but it is a key responsibility.

Renata (37:32.275)
Yes.

Renata (37:42.972)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. No, that’s a very good point, and I think it makes a lot of difference transitioning from corporate to nonprofit, understanding and how your time will be spent, maybe on a calendar year, maybe not day to day, but definitely an important point to make.

Nick Grono (37:56.901)
This.

Nick Grono (38:04.54)
There’s an example I like to use that illustrates perhaps to the corporate world, the differences between nonprofits and corporate. If I am running a business, commercial business, and have a really good strategy, and I execute really well, and we have a great product, and we’re outperforming our competitors, I probably have investors flooding in, right? Whereas if I’m running a nonprofit with a great strategy and performing really well and outperforming our peers and our competitors,

then often you’ll have funders say, you are doing so well, we no longer need to fund you and they will go fund something else. So, know, success in a nonprofit world doesn’t necessarily drive revenue, which is such a hard, hard thing to come to grips with.

Renata (38:36.445)
Yes.

Renata (38:44.486)
Yes, I’m glad you mentioned that. I had forgotten how hard that is. That people may, that success may come at a cost to a non-profit and funding can be pulled out. How do you deal with that?

Nick Grono (38:58.212)
It’s just really hard. And it could happen to the best reasons because the funders have, you know, thousands of people approaching them saying fund this really good cause. And they say, we’ve funded you for six years or seven years. And that’s long enough. I get that it happens. It’s just a deep flaw in the model. And I spent a lot of time thinking, I don’t know how we fix it because, because if we don’t earn income, you know, earn revenue then, but if we rely on people to give us revenue.

Renata (39:04.734)
Yeah.

Renata (39:11.498)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Grono (39:26.537)
We have to keep on persuading them that we have to persuade them of two things. One, that we’re having impact, but two, that we need their funding. And sometimes, as I said, when you are having impact and doing reasonably well, and my case to them is always, we can do more and your money is well spent and you’re getting really good value for your dollar. You know that we are well run and we’re having great impact. And if we have more funding, we can have greater impact. It’s not like, you know,

Renata (39:40.938)
Yeah.

Renata (39:51.178)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Grono (39:54.654)
going to end slavery. you know, if you think slavery is a problem and trafficking is a problem, then we need greater resources to have greater impacts. Sometimes that work. I mean, we’ve been very fortunate when we’ve had, you know, one of our founders is Minduru in Australia, and they’ve been with us for 10 years and are in there for the long term and deeply committed. And that is great because it just gives us a degree of certainty. And our other founders, Legatum and Human United, have both all been with us for 10 years and have made commitments into the future.

That’s somewhat unusual, but it means that we can continue to have the kind of impact that we want to have.

Renata (40:26.698)
Hmm.

Renata (40:33.706)
You know, here in Victoria, maybe, I don’t know how long ago, maybe 15 years ago, there was a big crisis in the nonprofit sector here because Dame Elizabeth Murdock passed away. And when she died, the money dried up. And it’s folklore. I’m not sure if it’s true or not, but there’s lovely stories about.

how people would go to her to ask for money and they would say, we need to build this men’s shed and it would, it you know, if everybody gives $5,000, we will have it built and she would then write a check for $5,000. But if you went to her and you said, we need to, you know, build this art center and it will cost 50, 500 million dollars.

and we need that money, she would write you a check for 500 million dollars. So, you know, the approach and that was told to me when I was starting to learn how to fundraise and I’ll never forget that. I I’ve used it and it worked for me as well. So, but but I think what happened in in Victoria back then is the funding dried up all of a sudden, which happens from time to time when, you know, political parties change. And if you

working with government. And a lot of organizations here tried to go into sort of a social enterprise situation. Sometimes it worked, many times it didn’t. And I was wondering if you sort of have any ideas about how to merge that need to have funding that is somewhat secured and can nonprofits run good social enterprises.

that support their business or is that always going to be a small bucket of money coming in?

Nick Grono (42:31.18)
think it depends very much on the issues that you’re working on. You know, we’re working on issues of slavery and trafficking for the most vulnerable, poorest, you know, most marginalised people in the world. And there isn’t a social impact model there because there just is no revenue to be generated anyway, or no government services to be substituted. But I was speaking with

Renata (42:35.369)
Yeah.

Nick Grono (42:53.583)
good friend of mine, Danny Sriskantharajah, who is the former head of Oxfam here in the UK. And he was talking about Oxfam has its charity shops. And they initially started because

after the war, people were giving them clothes and secondhand clothes and now thinking what should we do with this? And someone said, well, why don’t we just set up a shop and sell them? And that generates about $100 million in revenue a year and about, I think, $20 million in profit of unrestricted funding that is aligned with Oxfam’s kind of philosophy around circular economy and minimal impact on the environment. So I think if you can find a

business, or some kind of enterprise that is aligned with your mission and purpose, and that people buy into because they care about your cause. I can’t set up a shop for the Freedom Fund because I’m not going to sell paraphernalia that people aren’t going to invest. So some businesses can, right? I think absolutely. mean, to me, it would be my dream, in a sense, to run.

a non-profit that had a strong social enterprise component because it would bring in that earned income, you know, and if we did more and we bought in more, as long as it doesn’t drag you off track because the risk is, you know, then say, well, why don’t we just spend all of our money expanding our charity shop lines and actually much, much less money, you know, kind of raising funding and getting the money to the poorest in the world. So you always have to think what…

Renata (44:04.755)
Yeah.

Nick Grono (44:22.318)
keeps us on purpose. And this is where the board is important too. What keeps you on track? The CEO might be saying, I want to raise more and more money and drift over this way. And the board needs to say, well, you know, it’s great, but let’s keep focused. Let’s keep on mission. Let’s make sure we keep on doing what we’re really about, which is serving the poorest in the world, for example.

Renata (44:42.216)
Yeah. Well, that’s exactly right. And that’s exactly the answer that I wanted to hear, because I felt like at the time these social enterprises were just taking so much energy and time. And if they failed, the financial repercussions were actually much worse. So that was an interesting time to be in Victoria and seeing all of that and experiencing that situation.

I really want to recommend your book to all the listeners and to my clients. I have quite a few clients that I think will really benefit from reading your material. What else do you want to let the audience know? Where can they find you? Are you active on LinkedIn, for example, or Twitter?

Nick Grono (45:30.596)
Yep, I am active on LinkedIn under Nick Grinnell, less active on Twitter these days. LinkedIn is kind of where I engage most of the time. I have a website for the book, is www.leednonprofits.org, which talks about the book. If this comes out in time, I’m going to be in Melbourne on the 26th of November. The law firm Gilbert & Tobin will be hosting an event, which will be all about the book. And I expect that will be open to the public.

Renata (45:33.084)
Okay.

Nick Grono (45:59.226)
And I’ll be in Sydney on the 2nd of December. So I would welcome people who are interested in learning more about the world of nonprofits and I’ll be, you know, accessible to everyone. But the last point, you know, I always have to be careful when I have these podcasts, I talk a lot about the challenges, right? And I talk about the difficulties. But but I want to talk about the joy I worked as a corporate lawyer, I really enjoyed my work.

Renata (46:09.799)
Excellent.

Renata (46:20.967)
Okay

Nick Grono (46:27.462)
but I never had a sense of purpose. I never thought I was changing the world. I worked at Goldman Sachs. Again, I enjoyed the work intellectually. It’s amazing. And in this job, no matter how hard the work gets, every day, I think that my work, our work, my team’s work is contributing to a better world. We might not be doing as well as we could, and I’m not saying all of that, but I’m just saying I never doubt that the work has meaning. And I think that is tremendously important. And so particularly for those that are thinking of a career change and there are…

Renata (46:51.156)
Yes.

Nick Grono (46:56.819)
costs and consequences. My salary would not be what my close friends who are partners in law firms, let alone those who are in investment banking, but every day is rewarding in some way, despite the challenges, despite, I never wake up in the morning and think, you know, are we going to make a difference? It’s just how big a difference are we going to make? So I think that’s really worth, in a world where people are often kind of more focused on searching for some meaning and some…

Renata (47:10.451)
Yes.

Nick Grono (47:25.01)
purpose in life, well, finding a good nonprofit with a good strategy that you can support in some ways is a hugely rewarding job and gives you purpose for life.

Renata (47:38.25)
I think you’re absolutely right. work with clients. Most of my clients are on the second half of their career. They’ve achieved a lot. They had great careers in the corporate sector. They want purpose now. And when I talk to younger generations, I find that that need for purpose is already built into their DNA from a much earlier age than mine. think I…

sort of went in the 90s, we were so corporate driven and ambitious for our careers. And I don’t see that in the upcoming, the people that I teach, the students that I teach at Monash, for example. So yeah, the employee value proposition is.

human resources people call it has changed a lot and even corporations now need to really think about their culture and their purpose and pay attention to how ambition has changed in the world. People are ambitious for different things.

Nick Grono (48:46.174)
Yep, they are. you know, I talked about the differences between the nonprofit and the business world and how often it’s harder in a nonprofit world. But the one thing that nonprofits have over businesses is purpose is real. Purpose is poverty, hunger, you know, the arts. It’s and so it’s at the core of the work, even if if many of the other aspects of working nonprofits can be can be challenging. It’s it’s certainly, you know, I’ve never regretted it.

Renata (48:56.712)
Yes.

Renata (49:11.08)
Yeah

Nick Grono (49:14.526)
I feel extremely fortunate and privileged to be able to work in a world, part of the reason for writing a book was to help others. I mean, there’s no greater joy for me than people coming back and nonprofit leaders saying, well, your book really helps me. And if I can help nonprofit leaders be even more effective, well, then that’s to my mind, a huge contribution.

Renata (49:33.798)
Awesome. Nick, thank you so much for agreeing to be on the podcast. It means a lot to me to have you here. And when it goes out, we will link all the information about the book and the events you’re running. So thanks again.

Nick Grono (49:46.834)
Well, Renata, thanks for having me on. That was a great discussion and I love your interest in the nonprofit world. So thank you.

Renata (49:53.324)
Thank you. All right, let me just stop recording and I might need you to…