How We Run: Tips and Tales of Non-Profit Success Good Ways Inc

After only eight months in their new facilities, the Cayton Children's Museum faced the pandemic and subsequent reopening. According to their CEO, Jessica Aronoff, "I really did think the challenging part was when we were shut down. And that's not true. Sure, that was an existential challenge for us, for humanity. But from a business standpoint, the time since reopening has been the most challenging." In this episode, Jessica, who has worked as a funder and a non-profit executive, shares tips for talking to funders and how she leads her organization with "confident honesty."

Season 5, Episode 3 of the How We Run podcast has an amazing leader that has built an amazing organization.
Our guest is Nichol Whiteman, the CEO of the Dodgers Foundation who shares with us how she led a turnaround to build an organization with a deep understanding of its mission and goals.
Nichol shares:
"It was very important for us to focus first on youth and families who we know needed us most, who could truly help us drive programming moving forward. We created a grant making program. We knew that it was essential to be supporting nonprofits here on the ground in the Los Angeles community."
"In a weird way, I feel like a founder which is really special. We recreated ourselves. We created programs, we redefined our mission. We made it certain that clarity was provided for Dodger fans and for the broader Los Angeles community on who we are and what we're doing and why we're doing these things."

Find a transcript here: www.goodwaysinc.com/podcast-s5-e3-dodgers-foundation

We are joined by Liz Forer, CEO Venice Family Clinic, who tells us about the recent successful merger of two nonprofits: Venice Family Clinic and South Bay Family Health Care. Liz talks through how the board started planning and coordinating this merger for almost two years and what she feels makes it successful.

Jenna Hauss started as an intern at ONEgeneration and today she is the President and CEO of this $9 million organization in Southern California. Jenna shares what she's learned about the importance of succession planning and how she views it as a tool for the whole organization, not just executive roles.
"Succession planning is also about replacing key staff, not just executive leadership, but our program directors who are truly carrying the programs. Recognizing internal potential candidates that have leadership ability and giving them the tools and resources that they need."
"We are very selective when it comes to an individual who wants to potentially be on our board. There's a pretty in-depth process. We want to make sure that we're selecting individuals that are a good representation of the work that we do and of our community."
"What we've learned over this past year is that we can only do so much as an organization and the power of collaboration really can create a positive impact."

Since we're giving thanks this week, we thought we'd look back on all the fantastic guests we've had on Season 4 of the How We Run podcast and share what we've learned from them. Leslie Ito of Armory Center for the Arts, Tony Brown from HOLA, Johng Ho Song from KYCC, Roger Castle from the LA Regional Food Bank, and Mollie Marsh-Heine from Earthjustice.

For a transcript please visit: https://goodwaysinc.com/season-four-highlights/

Before Leslie Ito was the Executive Director of Armory Center for the Arts, she assumed the leadership at an organization that was struggling. Leslie shares with us how she approached that turnaround and what she learned about leading during a crisis (something that may have come in handy in 2020). Leslie shares with us what she prioritized, how she led the organization to be sustainable, and how she sees her big vision as a series of tiny steps. 

Click here for a transcript of this episode