Podcast episode transcript ↓
Josh:
Expanding a nonprofit from a local focus to a broader regional or national presence is a bold move that comes with many challenges.
From maintaining core values to adapting programs for new communities, nonprofits must navigate complex decisions to ensure successful growth.
So how can nonprofits ensure their mission remains intact as they expand?
And what steps can they take to adapt their programs and engage new communities effectively?
I'm Josh with Anedot and welcome to Nonprofit Pulse, where we explore trends, insights, and resources that help nonprofits accomplish their mission.
On this episode, we're joined by Elana Frank on the topic of how nonprofits can expand their local model.
Elana is the CEO and Founder of the Jewish Fertility Foundation, which provides financial assistance, support, and education to those struggling with infertility.
She's raised millions of dollars, trained over a thousand community and health care leaders, and is now scaling her organization to a national presence.
Hi, Elana, thanks for joining us on Nonprofit Pulse.
Elana:
Thanks for having me, I appreciate it.
Key operational considerations for nonprofits expanding from local to regional or national
Josh:
Yeah, excited for our conversation.
Today we're going to be talking about expanding the local model for nonprofits.
And first let's just talk through some of the operational considerations of what this means.
Because when I think about expanding the local model, that's where my mind goes is, geez, how operationally is this going to work out?
So what are some key operational considerations for a nonprofit when they're looking to expand from that local model to more of a regional or even national model?
Elana:
Sure. So I'll tell you, my experience really focused first on community based scaling.
So I started my organization in Atlanta. I tested it out. We piloted the program to even see if it was going to be successful in one location.
And we have three prongs to our mission. And I didn't do it, like, overnight.
We built it up always with the intention, if this works, we're helping people. We can scale.
My impact was always community, so I knew I wanted to pilot. Piloting is always key to our success.
I wanted to pilot replication exactly in the same way that I did it in Atlanta, in another city. And one of the most important considerations when thinking about doing what we did is, number one, not choosing a random location.
For us, we're working around infertility, education, support, and financial assistance. And I didn't want to choose the location.
I had people reach out to me all the time saying, I wish we had a Jewish Fertility Foundation in our city.
And that's great. We can't help everyone at every moment, especially as we're growing.
But the first thing we consider is the need.
And really then spending a lot of time doing market research, building, in our case, an exploratory committee, which it takes time.
We're not yet investing in the location to open. It's that time. It's that energy. It's the staffing.
It's my time going out there because when you're small and scrappy, you don't have a tremendous amount of staff doing that.
The very first thing we had to do was make sure that that initial programing in the first location was supported by a staff person.
So that was like the itty bitty step is really taking my time to a new city to do the market research with the right people and then go from there.
Josh:
Yeah. So talk to us about that timing.
For y'all, how long was that time frame of doing the research, of trying to do your due diligence to make sure this is the right location.
What did that look like?
Elana:
Yeah. So, I mean, now we've grown to ten locations.
So that initial pilot, we had a city, we had a person reach out to us and say, hey, you know, would you ever consider opening up in Cincinnati?
And from that point, it took, I think, about a year, more than a year for us to understand, if it was a fit, to figuring out how we were going to fund it, to actually opening it up.
It was a little over a year, and we made sure to document the process because there were things that we learned as well that would ultimately help us.
And then just like in the growth of the organization, some cities took about six months.
There was another city that took about two years to be able to assess and then to the kickoff.
Josh:
Yeah. How did y'all plan for that?
And in the sense of, did y'all have an idea of how much time you were willing to wait and let things play out?
Or was it more open ended with, hey we are going to do these things, and these are going to be triggers that move us to the next thing.
Like, what did that look like as far as going into it and expectations?
Elana:
So organizationally, our board of directors at that time and we're talking in 2019, we organizationally, wanted to make sure that this process was strategic.
Our process happened to be very reactive in terms of how we chose where to expand, which was our strategy was reactive.
As we grew and learned more, it became more proactive in how we were choosing cities.
But our board of directors really was excited by all of this and quickly came in.
Well, first I'll tell you, they charged me the CEO. Okay, let's expand. We learned that as an organization, we were expanding. That was exciting.
First, we had to understand well are we going to expand in Atlanta where we started?
Or are we going to go deeper with the services and programs that we're offering, or do we want to expand geographically?
And then we decided as an organization, which was a process in itself.
Then once we had the go ahead in our strategic plan, it was expand.
That's not a lot of, for me as a, you know, the entrepreneur and like, the founder of this organization.
Great. I have the green light. Let's go. And there was a lot of resistance and my board got nervous, which looking back, I totally get it.
There wasn't a plan. And so we spent a lot of time creating an organizational policy of when the board was going to be involved and how.
And ultimately it led us to coming up with a comfortable number of locations we would open annually, which was 1 to 3.
I never felt pressure, like as the CEO. You have to open this location or else.
It was more of like, if the opportunity presents itself, go through the steps that we created and then if everything checks all of our boxes, it makes sense to open up this location.
How to ensure mission and values remain intact during nonprofit expansion
Josh:
Got it.
So Elana, thinking about some of the the scary parts of expanding locally, one of the things that comes to my mind is losing kind of your soul of your organization as you expand and really leave your local roots.
So what would you say to those who are worried about that?
How can they really ensure that their core mission and values can expand and can remain strong, and deeply in their organization even as they expand?
Elana:
Yeah, I would say it's very possible. And, we're also looking, like what type of organization are we going to be?
Are we going to be a franchise, right? Like we create this menu and list of the JFF way, we hand it over, and then they're in charge.
That's not who we wanted to be.
We really wanted to make sure that our product remained as high of a quality as we really believe it is.
And so what we chose to do is that we worked very, very closely with a location, with volunteers and community leaders on the ground.
By the time we get to the point of opening up a city, we together hire a local manager in that location.
But they ultimately report to us, they are us, so that there's not a them and an us.
They are learning the JFF way, we are learning about the specific community needs, and together we are providing this JFF service.
Strategies to replicate local model success in new communities
Josh:
Yeah. I want to talk more about local community engagement and what that looks like, in just a moment.
But first, maybe let's shift to strategy a bit.
What strategies can nonprofits use to really replicate the success of their local model in new areas or communities?
You mentioned the menu idea, which is more of a 1 to 1. That would be maybe one strategy.
But what other strategies would you recommend for doing that?
Elana:
So for us, I think it was more about understanding what we provide in this space.
We have these three prongs. Those are the three prongs that we were looking to replicate.
And being very careful of mission creep. Knowing that it's okay to say no at times.
We had locations or communities that reached out to us and they're like, we only want two of those mission areas.
We had to say, we totally respect that. But that's not what we're doing right now.
What we're trying to do over the next few years is understand, can we really replicate around, being true to our model.
Know that you can say no and don't go outside of the scope to meet the needs of the community, which is ironic because I always want to meet the needs of the community. But really, be true to the program that you built.
Josh:
Yeah, I love that. And just the power of no in those situations, it's so important.
Mission creep has come up on several of our past episodes and it makes sense because look, nonprofits want to help people, they want to serve people, they have a heart to care for people.
And when someone shows up and says, hey, we have this need, it might be a little outside of your wheelhouse or your offerings or your mission, but can you still help us?
It's very hard to say no. It's very hard to see that as something other than a yes opportunity.
And yet it can be so detrimental to really veer off from what your core offerings are and what you're trying to accomplish.
The ramifications of that can last for years. And just countless things can go sideways through that.
Role of community engagement and relationship-building during expansion
Josh:
So shifting to the local community and thinking through kind of what role does the local community play and how do you engage with them?
What would you say to that for nonprofits who are maybe beginning their exploration of, okay, we're thinking about this city?
What would you say to those who are wanting to go ahead and engage or start the engagement?
And then what can they expect or hope from those local community leader as far as relationship, resources, etc.?
Elana:
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the challenges that I've seen my peers experience, which we don't experience, is the community welcoming an established organization if it didn't start there.
So if you're your national organization, trying to go into a city, it can pose challenges.
We do it in the opposite. We never have to get the buy in because we are building the buy in from the grassroots level.
So generally somebody in the community for us, whether it's like a reproductive attorney or reproductive therapist, or somebody within the Jewish community who is a rabbi, a community leader, or a veteran of infertility, somebody who's gone through infertility.
They reach out and they start this process. The very first thing that I ask them to do is homework.
I want to know the demographics. I want to know how many people we have the potential to serve.
What is their market look like? How many people are within the age of baby making years 25 to 45.
Are there large corporations in the city that people are coming back home after college to, like, is there an influx of people there?
Are there local fertility clinics there? Are there, what is their philanthropic community like?
These are questions like, I know even beforehand.
And then remember I told you my board gets involved. I share this with my board. It's a conversation.
If everything looks like, oh, that is a fit for our organization, then the real work of the community starts and they build an exploratory committee.
And it's made up of all the experts in this space who potentially are going to be the community builders.
So by the time they're all connected and excited and we get to, for us, raising initial capital, which is the next phase, we pretty much have a buzz going on.
People know we're already there. It's not like we have to really break down those barriers because we've been doing such deep work in the community already.
Josh:
Yeah, that's so good. And maybe even thinking about public relations, and go ahead and having a contact at the local newspaper or the regional newspaper or the news channel.
Just playing that who do you know game, right?
Hey, this would be a great morning segment. New nonprofit addressing fertility challenges comes to Cincinnati, right?
Just a lot of opportunity and kind of laying those seeds, planting those seeds early on.
Common operational challenges in nonprofit growth and how to address them
Josh:
So, thinking about operational capacity, Elana, there's a lot that goes into scaling a nonprofit.
There's a lot of areas, from staffing, to infrastructure and fundraising, even support.
How would you guide nonprofits in really successfully scaling that operational capacity as they expand beyond just their local organization?
Elana:
Yeah. I mean, it's not just as easy as picking up and understanding the budget of one, if you're going to another community or region.
It's not just picking up and understanding this is the budget. It cost $100,000 to run this operation. Now it's going to be 200.
That's not the case. In some cases, you can actually consolidate some of the offerings.
And so some things will be less expensive. But organizationally there's more management that needs to happen.
More fundraising, more advertising, more X, Y, and Z. It's not just multiply your budget by two.
It's really understanding that ultimately you're building a larger infrastructure. And to take that into consideration as well.
Josh:
Yeah. That's so important and I think naturally we just think, okay, well we've got 15 staff or 20 staff and therefore we're going to need 15 staff and we're going to need this.
And there's so much complexity that is really under the hood that has to be thought through, thoroughly planned, and reaching out to other nonprofits who have already done this.
Right? I mean, thinking of you and thinking of JFF, thinking of others. Even shared service models I know are super valuable to nonprofits.
Hey look, you're in Atlanta, Elana. Having all of the marketing, maybe for another place, another location, another city done in Atlanta without having to hire another graphic designer or hire a web support person.
I mean, those are great efficiency gains that organizations can tap into right away.
But that said, there's still needs to be fundraising involved in that and funding of that shared service team.
Any other thoughts there as far as capacity and maybe some challenges around that that you wish you had known before you all grew your organization?
Elana:
Yeah. Listen, there are lots of great places that I have gone to learn.
So, I mean, I've always been in the nonprofit space, but being a CEO can be pretty lonely. And you have to, like, be resourceful. You have to figure things out.
So I've number one, taken advantage of fellowships.
Within the Jewish community, there are many incubators or fellowships that can help accelerate your growth and help present information that you might not even think about.
So that's one kind of tip I would offer.
Another tip I would offer would be, you start having now, I think we have 17 people on staff, right?
There's health benefits needs. And there's also things like payroll and things like, if you can't yet afford financial services, but you still have to do an audit.
I really love using consultants or outside companies that focus on nonprofits, because then I don't have to hire somebody internal until we can really afford it.
And I've done that both, I work with a PEO company. I work with a company that actually offers a health reimbursement, like a debit card. I had to figure these things out on my own.
Like, I wish there was one place that I could go to say, like, if you're below, a $500,000 budget, million dollar budget, $2 million budget, like, what are some opportunities without growing your staff quickly?
Because then you have to fundraise more that you still need these services.
That's been something like a struggle that, gosh, I would have saved so much time and energy if somebody had just told me these things.
So I'm sharing it with you now.
Ways to scale staffing to support expansion
Josh:
Yes, yes. And maybe speak to us about how you all approach full time and part time and how that played into your expansion.
What were those early discussions like whenever deciding, hey, should this role be a full time or a part time? What did that look like?
Elana:
Again, it's like taking, like becoming, a proper, well-run nonprofit organization which has to run like a business.
But in the early days, we were so scrappy. I mean, I was doing everything until I could afford a part time person.
And then, more part time people really built the community based management positions, like we have a manager in each of our cities.
I know that role needs to be full time, and I'm working on that now, but these part time positions, especially with like working moms.
We’re a 100%, female run organization. And we love that.
We also give an opportunity for people, women who might have been out of the workforce for a while to come in and still have a family life, also really making a difference.
So it gives us that opportunity to work with part time people.
Also, we learned a few years ago that the executive staff, my staff, has to be full time.
There is a different level of commitment from the professional, when they are working full time. And we needed that at the level of the executive team.
So I mean, there's things we learned along the way, mistakes we make along the way.
But I think every lesson that we learned has brought us to where we are today.
Josh:
And what is the executive level staffing at your other locations look like, or what is the plan there?
A lot of organizations will have maybe an executive level director at each city.
And maybe that won't be for a period of 3 to 5 years, but there's usually some plan of having that level of commitment and level of leader there.
What does that look like for JFF?
Elana:
Well, I'll tell you about our executive team because they really are supporting the managers on the ground.
Right now, we have part time managers up until full time managers. It depends on the size of the location.
When I say size, how many people they are serving. So really a lot of the work is behind the scenes coming from what we call our headquarters, which is our executive team.
And we also work with graduate school social work interns who are doing a lot of the support and programming.
So that's been a great tool we've used for like nine years, graduate school social workers.
But my executive team, I have a development director, I have a operations director, and then I have two managing directors of programs who supervise all the local managers.
Josh:
Got it. Got it. And how has that evolved from early on?
And how do you all see that maybe evolving even in the future?
Elana:
Yeah, I mean, it's constantly evolving.
I think as we look forward, we really want to make a deeper impact and be able to serve more people in a much bigger financial way and more nationally.
So one of the things that we're thinking of doing at some point is really offering regional opportunities.
So regional fundraisers, regional managers to provide the direct services and really see if we are able to take our managers and shift them to more full time opportunity and work.
We also are looking to see if there are other opportunities, like we figured out this community based model in one location.
Are there other opportunities for us to provide this direct service, but virtually, so that I don't have to hire somebody locally?
Those are things that we're talking about now and considering.
Closing thoughts
Josh:
For nonprofits who are hoping to learn more about scaling or expanding beyond the local model, what resources would you share with them that could help them continue their education or maybe get conversations started within their organization?
Elana:
Gosh, I mean, I mentioned before fellowships.
Right now I'm part of this, it's called Upstart Accelerator. It has been tremendous.
I'm with like eight other organizations who are at this like, we're about a $2 million organization, and we're scaling nationally.
And the resources have been tremendous. I mean, I went to graduate school for nonprofit management. Great.
These are not things that you learn in graduate school. The work is done like when you're actually doing it.
I think that my strategy has been these fellowships, but also talking to people who are a step ahead of me and really focusing on what their mistakes were, right?
So, like, I can figure out I mean, it's important to know also what they did well, but what are their learning curves so I can learn from that.
And that's been just talking to anybody who will talk to me has been a strategy that I utilize.
Josh:
Awesome. And as always, for our listeners, you can go to Nonprofitpulse.com and find the show notes section and we'll have the links to Elana’s LinkedIn account, her organization, and the resources she mentioned.
So again, Nonprofitpulse.com, and you can find those.
Elana, thinking of the last question of the episode.
If you were standing on stage in front of 1,000 nonprofit leaders and could share one thing with them, one sentence, what would you say about expanding the local model?
Elana:
Oh, I thought you're going to say about anything. And I was gonna say, freeze your eggs, freeze your eggs. But that's not the right audience.
Expanding. I think you have to listen. I think that you might come in and think that your way is the only way.
You have to be a little bit flexible. Not say yes to everything, but be flexible in understanding that you might need to modify and it might not look exactly the way that you envisioned prior. And that's okay. As long as your model is doing what it's supposed to be doing, ultimately, in the nonprofit world, helping people.
Josh:
Love it, love it. This has been such a helpful episode. Such a helpful conversation.
Elana, thanks so much for joining us.
And just congratulations on all the success at Jewish Fertility Foundation and your leadership and what you've been able to accomplish there.
Just so thankful for you joining us.
And, again, everyone can check out the show notes at Nonprofitpulse.com to learn more about Elana and the resources.
But just thanks again for joining us.
Elana:
Thanks, Josh.
Josh:
Hey, thanks for listening.
If you enjoyed this conversation, please share or leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts.
Also, head on over to Nonprofitpulse.com to sign up for our monthly newsletter, as well as check out all the links and resources in the show notes. We’ll see you next time.
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