June 18, 2024

Forging Connections Through the Goodman Nonprofit Center

By Andy Davey

"I know a smart, thoughtful and strategic nonprofit leader who has spent the last eight years working on the things you’re interested in. I’ll connect you.” This was a much appreciated and, in retrospect, somewhat prophetic message I received on my second day on the job as a brand-new MCF researcher several years ago.

The name of the leader was Cristine Nardi, and she was the executive director of the Center for Nonprofit Excellence (CNE) in Charlottesville, Virginia. Her full-time job was to build the capacity of nonprofit leaders and organizations to better fulfill their missions. The observations she shared with me contributed to our efforts to better understand and address the practical needs and aspirations of our own nonprofit community. Now, nearly seven years later, that work will culminate in the launching of the Goodman Nonprofit Center at MCF.

My conversation with Cristine and her work at CNE revealed two important insights about capacity building:

• First, nonprofits get extraordinary benefit from a reliable and well-funded institutional hub dedicated to their practical learning, skill-building and collective impact efforts.
• Second, nonprofits leaders and staff learn so much from the wisdom and experience of their peers, just as I did from that early phone call with Cristine.

These insights are at the heart of the Goodman Nonprofit Center’s purpose and the ways it will grow and evolve over time.

Developing Nonprofit Leaders Through the Goodman Fellowship Program

Beginning in late 2025, the Goodman Nonprofit Center will launch a year-long leadership development program called the Goodman Fellowship program. Nonprofit leaders will be part of a peer cohort, learning from each other as well as veteran practitioners and educators on the core fundamentals of running a nonprofit, including financial management and strategic planning; marketing and fundraising; human resources and advocacy; and more.

When my research colleague Sharon Lezberg and I interviewed local executive directors we heard a common theme that they often enter their positions without formal management training. They might have deep expertise and talent from backgrounds as lawyers, artists, ecologists or social workers and all kinds of relevant lived experience, but not necessarily the full suite of skills needed to manage a nonprofit organization.

Learning on the job can be exciting, but also stressful and exhausting. The Goodman Fellowship program will provide an affordable, accessible way for new and aspiring executive directors to build this essential skill base and identify trusted peers they can turn to for coaching and support far into the future.

Building a Model Based on Others’ Success

This program was partly modeled after a similar program launched in Appleton, Wisconsin, by the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region’s Nonprofit Leadership Initiative . More than 100 nonprofits leaders have benefited from this program since its launch in 2013, and MCF has benefited from the wisdom of the community foundation staff who have designed and managed it. The Goodman Fellowship was also inspired by Leadership Greater Madison , which has deepened the civic knowledge and commitment of leaders from all sectors of Madison’s economy over the past 30 years, including many MCF staff such as Bob Sorge (cohort #8), Tom Linfield (cohort #7), and me (current cohort #30).

Developing a Resource Repository and Consultant Directory

As we move forward, the Goodman Nonprofit Center also will launch and curate an online repository of high-quality resources on subjects such as board governance, capital campaigns and social media communications strategy. It also will feature a directory of local consultants who serve the nonprofit sector. MCF staff get inquiries weekly for names or recommendations of potential consultants so this will be a fantastic resource to have available. We also are exploring additional online resources like an events calendar for professional development opportunities and directories of free and affordable meeting or co-working spaces.

Just like our leadership program, the online repository was inspired by other wonderful nonprofit center and capacity building models from around the country. For example, The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven manages an excellent online Nonprofit Resource Center for its community in Connecticut. In Seattle, 501 Commons provides a tremendous array of materials for the local nonprofit ecosystem. The Minnesota Council of Nonprofits is an impressive example of nonprofit capacity building across the entire state of Minnesota, including its website – which receives 20,000 unique visitors a week.

Tapping Into Other Community Resources for Capacity Building

The Goodman Nonprofit Center will become critical infrastructure for supporting our robust and vibrant nonprofit sector, but it will not be alone. It also will be connecting nonprofit staff and volunteers to many other organizations in the Madison area doing important capacity building work, such as Collaboration for Good, Community Shares, UW-Extension, UW Center for Community and Nonprofit Studies, Center for Community Stewardship, Association of Fundraising Professionals, to name just a few. MCF will continue to collaborate and learn from the work of these organizations as the Nonprofit Center evolves.

Making It Easier to Make Connections

Another finding from our research was that, without a dedicated nonprofit center, information sharing and peer connections can often be sporadic, frustrating and inequitable. I was connected to Cristine Nardi at the Center for Nonprofit Excellence in Charlottesville because I was fortunate to benefit from the institutional knowledge of MCF colleagues, namely former Communications Director Brennan Nardi.

Brennan had been a brilliant journalist and community builder in Madison for many years and, as you might guess from her last name, she was also Cristine’s sister. These kinds of privileged or serendipitous connections will always play a role in the working world, but the Goodman Nonprofit Center will be committed to helping more nonprofit leaders make these kinds of connections, and to make them more easily and quickly.

From my own experience working at multiple nonprofits, my extensive research while at MCF, and many conversations with nonprofit and foundation colleagues over the years, it’s overwhelmingly clear that nonprofit leaders can learn so much from each other’s brilliance and experience. It’s also clear that having a dedicated place for leaders to come together, deepen their leadership and management acumen, easily access the information they need, and engage in dialogue and collaboration is critical. The Goodman Nonprofit Center will be such a place.