Category Strategy & Leadership

Early in my career, I worked in a business culture that measured success almost entirely by profit. Over time – as I matured, learned more about how businesses really last and paid closer attention to who was paying the price – my thinking changed. People came first. Then the planet joined them.

Today it’s a trifecta for me: people, planet and profit. I’m Indigenous, and I don’t hide it. My values shaped who I am and how I work, and equity is a condition of every engagement I take on.

Trust is what makes profit last

I believe a business that wants to be sustainable in the modern world needs two things: trust and profit.

Trust comes from three places:

1. How you treat people – all of them. Your team, your vendors and suppliers, your customers, and the people further down the line, like the crews who handle your waste.
2. How you treat the planet you depend on.
3. How you manage your profits, and who shares in them.

I’m reminded of this often. Right now, Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation in northern Alberta is in court over water permits for a massive proposed AI data centre, near lands where my ancestors lived. Watching communities fight to be heard on what happens to their land and water reinforces everything I believe about how business should be done.

What equity looks like in practice

1. Pay equity. Everyone I hire or work alongside is paid fairly for the work, and pay is set by the role.
2. Fairer hiring. I’ve worked with HR teams to remove applicant names and identifying details from what hiring managers see. Bias is there, conscious or not. This takes some of it out of the room.
3. Careful storytelling. When we tell someone’s story, we care deeply for the person in it – and for the reader, who may carry their own hard experiences and be affected by what we share.
4. Optimize, not maximize. When I talk about revenue with teams and leaders, I talk about optimizing. Maximizing almost always means decisions that cause someone pain.
5. Deeper listening. My surveys ask more than “were you satisfied?” I want to know whether we met your expectations, and whether you believe my client meets them better than the other businesses you use.
6. Community investment. For businesses that need a stronger market presence, investing in the community is often the most meaningful way to earn it.

Think of it as a Hippocratic oath for business: do no harm, while enriching yourself, your team, your customers and your community.

Where I walk away

Holding to this means saying no. I’ve walked away from:

1. Workplaces where, on a first tour, the team looked ready to cry or walk out.
2. Leaders who made it clear that power and pressure were how they worked with people.
3. A corporate community program where a senior leader told me the cause didn’t matter to him – only sales did – while one of his own managers had a child in the very hospital we were meant to support.
4. Charities that double-count designated gifts, don’t understand their own charitable purposes or outcomes, or treat themselves as beyond question.

None of those were easy decisions. Each one protected the people I’d have been asking to trust me.

What it makes possible

When people are treated well, they bring their best. When the planet is respected, the business has a future to grow into. And when profit is managed with care, trust follows – from customers, communities and the team that makes it all happen.

Try this

Pick one decision your organization made this month – a price, a hire, a campaign, a vendor. Ask three questions: who benefited, who paid a cost, and would we be comfortable explaining it to all of them?

Be well.

Sources

1. CBC News, “Water, consultation, top of mind as northern Alberta First Nation hosts meeting on proposed data centre” – https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/sturgeon-lake-cree-nation-wonder-valley-engagement-session-9.7305052
2. Global News, “Alberta First Nation in court over massive proposed ‘Wonder Valley’ AI data centre” – https://globalnews.ca/news/11895544/wonder-valley-sturgeon-lake-cree-nation-court/

Most organizations I meet already have good people. The marketing coordinator who stays late to finish the newsletter. The development officer juggling three campaigns and a database nobody fully understands. The executive director or owner who signs off on all of it while running everything else.

They’re capable, committed and working hard. What’s missing is the support to set them up for success.

The experience gap

Board members, executives and owners are good people too. But fundraising and marketing are specialized disciplines, and most leaders come to them from somewhere else – finance, operations, programs, sales, the founding idea itself. So when it’s time to decide on a campaign, a budget or a hire, even the best leaders can be making calls without the experience to back them.

That gap usually gets filled in one of two ways.

Option one: hire a full-time director

A seasoned director or C-suite marketing or fundraising lead brings real expertise. For many small and mid-sized organizations, though, the role only needs about a day or a day and a half a week of senior, strategic work. The rest is hands-on delivery – writing, scheduling, reporting, calling.

That mismatch frustrates everyone. The senior hire wants to focus on strategy. The organization needs them doing the work. And the budget is carrying a full-time executive salary for part-time executive work.

Option two: hire junior or mid-career people

Eager, talented people at earlier stages in their careers bring energy and fresh ideas. Without experienced support, though, they often feel lost within weeks. They aren’t sure how the work should be done, what good looks like or how to measure it. They work hard and still feel like they’re falling behind.

That isn’t a talent problem. It’s a support problem.

A third option: fractional leadership

A fractional leader brings senior experience for a set number of hours, and spends those hours making your team better at the work they already do. Your people stay focused on delivering great work and growing in their roles. You get strategy, structure and coaching sized to what the organization needs.

Here’s how I work as a fractional lead:

1. Always reachable. Team members can reach me daily by text, email or phone. A quick question shouldn’t wait a week.
2. Weekly with the team. I meet each week with the people doing the work – to plan, solve problems and keep momentum.
3. Every two to four weeks with leadership. I meet with executives, owners or board leads on a regular rhythm, and sooner when something pressing comes up.
4. Clear from day one. When we begin, I set clear expectations, agree on how we’ll measure success and put shared tracking tools in place so everyone can see what’s happening.
5. Automated where it helps. I use automations to keep tasks, updates and reporting clear and consistent, so less falls through the cracks and more time goes to the work itself.
6. Goals for every person. Together, we set goals for each team member I support, and I help each of them reach those goals.

Sometimes a role and a person aren’t the right fit. When that happens, I help that person move on with care and dignity, so that they and the team can each find success.

What it makes possible

Your team gains a guide who knows how the work gets done. Your leaders gain the clarity to make confident decisions about marketing and fundraising. And your budget carries senior expertise in proportion to what the organization actually needs.

This works for businesses, charities and social enterprises alike. Good people do their best work when someone has their back.

Try this

List everyone on your team who touches marketing or fundraising. Next to each name, write one question they’ve been stuck on this month. If the list fills up fast, your people are ready for more support.

Be well.

Originally published September 12, 2023 on knowgood.ca as “When Facing Concurrent Crises, Demand Outside Help”

Updated September 2026

A few things have held true for my entire career in the charitable sector. Resources are always tight. And good fundraisers change roles every few years.

On their own, those are just facts of the job. Stacked on top of the pressures of the last few years, they become something heavier. The Ontario Nonprofit Network’s 2025 State of the Sector survey, with 469 organizations responding, shows how heavy.

Four pressures, all at once

1. Demand. 85% of organizations saw demand for their programs rise in the past year.
2. Staffing. 52% of organizations with paid staff struggled to recruit or keep people. Among those, 51% named staff burnout and stress as a cause, and 62% had to scale back programs or services.
3. Money. Nearly one in four (23%) said they could sustain operations for six months or less.
4. Donors. Fewer Canadians are giving. In 2013, 21.9% of tax filers claimed a charitable donation. By 2023, that number was 16.8%.

Each of these is manageable on its own. Together, they can make a strong team feel like it is running uphill in the dark.

The people doing the work

The non-profit sector is a significant part of Canada’s economy – about 8.3% of GDP. Imagine Canada counts roughly 2.7 million people working in it, about 70% of them women, earning on average 13% less than other Canadian employees. These are people who chose this work because they care. They deserve leaders who protect their capacity as carefully as they protect the budget.

The good news is that most of what burns teams out can be seen coming. And what can be seen can be planned for.

What leaders can do

1. Be clear about the goal, and about the work it takes. A target without an honest picture of the hours behind it is a burnout plan.
2. Know where your team is strong and where it is stretched. Map the skills you have against the goals you have set. The gaps will tell you where help is needed.
3. Protect the work that drives results. Choose the projects that matter most this year and next, and give them room to be done well. Let the rest wait.
4. Keep your skilled people. When someone is doing their job well, guard their time. Asking them to absorb one more project “just this year” is often how you lose them.
5. Bring in help for specialized, time-bound work. A new stewardship program, a database migration, a campaign plan – these can be scoped, delivered and handed back. Contract staff, a peer organization, a volunteer with the right expertise, or an external consultant can carry that load so your team can keep its focus on donors and the community.

Asking for help is a leadership skill. The charities that come through hard seasons in good shape are usually the ones that noticed early, named the pressure out loud, and made room for their people.

Try this

At your next team meeting, ask everyone one question: “What is one piece of work you’re carrying that someone else could carry better?” Write down the answers. That list is your starting point.

Be well.

Sources

1. Ontario Nonprofit Network, State of the Sector Survey 2025 – https://theonn.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/ONN-2025-State-of-the-Sector-technical-report-EN-final.pdf
2. Imagine Canada, People First: A Portrait of Canada’s Nonprofit Workforce (April 2025) – https://imaginecanada.ca/en/research/people-first-canada-nonprofit-workforce
3. Fraser Institute, Generosity in Canada: The 2025 Generosity Index – https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/generosity-in-canada-2025-generosity-index
4. Statistics Canada, Non-profit institutions and volunteering: Economic contribution, Q4 2023 – https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/240328/dq240328c-eng.htm

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Since about 2013 or 2014, Conor has been sharing ideas, thoughts, and experiences on LinkedIn. Some of his pieces are well-written articles, while others more closely resemble stream of thought pieces.

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The Fundraiser, The Miser

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OK. Maybe “hate” is the wrong word.

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I believe in dinosaurs. There are some that have died off because they stopped working (I wrote about a few of them here.

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Selling Philanthropy: Life Insurance

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The most critical factor in fundraising

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Common Threads: Donor Acquisition

When writing direct mail, call scripts or other fundraising collateral, conventional wisdom says that we need to find a way to link our cause to the donor or risk not being heard. Cool concept, right – get into the hearts of the masses and you are guaranteed to win.

Why Fundraisers should spend 35 seconds with a Hunter

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