The Brave and Balanced Fundraiser

Erin McQuade-Wright
  • 5.0 (8)
  • NON-PROFIT

The Brave and Balanced Fundraiser is the podcast I wish had existed during my 15 years in fundraising. It’s a love offering to the people behind the mission—the professional fundraisers who give their hearts and energy every day to make the world better. This show isn’t about strategy, metrics, or money. It’s about you—the human being doing the work. Each episode offers real tools and soulful conversations to help you regulate your nervous system, reconnect with your purpose, and renew your energy so you can lead with clarity, compassion, and courage. If you’ve ever felt stretched thin, overworked, or caught in the constant pressure to perform, this podcast is your invitation to return home to yourself. Join me to learn how to cultivate balance, resilience, and authentic impact—from the inside out. Full Episode Transcript: https://share.descript.com/view/fkFZpmNYF3v

  1. 1D AGO

    Mission Over Burnout with Mary Beth Alvarez

    What Fundraisers, Donors, and Doctors Can Teach Us About Sustainability, Mental Health, and the Long Game In this episode of The Brave and Balanced Fundraiser, Erin is joined by Mary Beth Alvarez, a dual-boarded internist and psychiatrist, public health professional, philanthropist, and longtime nonprofit board member. Together, they explore why burnout isn’t actually solved by self-care alone… how secrecy and discomfort around money create anxiety for fundraisers and donors alike… and why sustainable fundraising depends on connection to mission, clear expectations, and honest conversation. Drawing from medicine, mental health, philanthropy, and nonprofit leadership, Mary Beth shares why systems shouldn’t rely on burnout or heroics, how direct asks help people feel included rather than pressured, and what it looks like to play the long game with donors, board members, and fundraising teams. This episode is for fundraisers who feel the weight of the ask, for donors and board members who want to be genuinely engaged, and for anyone who believes mission-driven work should not come at the cost of well-being. Send Erin a text Book your 1:1 Brave and Balanced Breakthrough Coaching Session here: https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthrough ✨ Stay Connected & Continue Your Fundraising Growth Listen to all episodes + subscribe: https://thebraveandbalancedfundraiser.buzzsprout.com Join the community: The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser Facebook Group 👉 https://www.facebook.com/groups/braveandbalancedfundraiser Book a Brave & Balanced Breakthrough Call: A personalized 1:1 session to support your inner clarity and fundraising wellbeing. 👉 https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthrough Learn more about Erin’s coaching & nervous-system based support: VitalistCoaching.com Connect on Instagram: @erinmcquadewright

    36 min

  2. APR 7

    Hold Your Own Energy: A Somatic Reset for Fundraising Events

    A Nervous System Approach to Donor Events, Fundraising Anxiety, and Executive Presence Have you ever left a fundraising gala feeling outwardly successful but internally depleted? Fundraising events are high-stimulation environments — filled with noise, hierarchy, expectation, and subtle power dynamics. For many nonprofit professionals — especially empathic or highly sensitive fundraisers — these spaces can trigger nervous system overdrive. In this episode of The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser, Erin explores: Why donor events activate stress responsesHow people-pleasing can masquerade as strategyWhat “energetic self-abandonment” looks like in major gift spacesWhy embodied presence is your true power positionA 20-second somatic reset you can use in the middle of any galaIf you’ve ever felt yourself scanning the room, over-accommodating influential donors, or subtly shrinking in high-dollar environments, this episode offers a grounded alternative. Because your authority in fundraising does not come from hovering near power. It comes from holding your own. What You’ll Learn in This Episode Why fundraising events are neurologically stimulating — especially for Highly Sensitive People (HSPs)The difference between strategic attunement and stress-based over-attunementHow self-abandonment erodes executive presenceHow nervous system regulation builds donor trustA discreet somatic grounding practice to reset your energy on the spotThe 20-Second Reset (Quick Reference) At your next fundraising event: Feel your feet inside your shoes.Let your shoulders drop one inch.Inhale slowly. Exhale longer than you inhale.Silently say: “I am here. In my body.”Notice one physical sensation.Presence is power. Send Erin a text Book your 1:1 Brave and Balanced Breakthrough Coaching Session here: https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthrough ✨ Stay Connected & Continue Your Fundraising Growth Listen to all episodes + subscribe: https://thebraveandbalancedfundraiser.buzzsprout.com Join the community: The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser Facebook Group 👉 https://www.facebook.com/groups/braveandbalancedfundraiser Book a Brave & Balanced Breakthrough Call: A personalized 1:1 session to support your inner clarity and fundraising wellbeing. 👉 https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthrough Learn more about Erin’s coaching & nervous-system based support: VitalistCoaching.com Connect on Instagram: @erinmcquadewright

    24 min

  3. MAR 31

    The Enneagram in Fundraising: Your Superpower and Your Growth Edge

    How Your Enneagram Type Shapes Donor Relationships, Major Gifts, and Sustainable Fundraising Success Have you ever wondered why certain parts of fundraising feel effortless — while others drain you? In this episode of The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser, Erin explores how the nine Enneagram types show up in fundraising. You’ll discover your fundraising superpower, your hidden growth edge, and how your unconscious personality pattern may be shaping donor conversations more than you realize. This is not a technical deep dive into wings or subtypes. It’s a practical, high-level lens to help you: Understand your motivational patternFundraise from your strengthsNotice where stress habits may be costing youRegulate your nervous system before making the askWe all carry all nine types within us — but most of us have one dominant pattern that drives our behavior under pressure. When you understand your pattern, you stop fighting yourself and start leading yourself. Curious about your type? You can take a free Enneagram test here:  Eclectic Energies (Free Test):  https://www.eclecticenergies.com/enneagram/test For a more in-depth, paid assessment developed by Enneagram researchers Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson:  Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator (RHETI):  https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/rheti If this episode resonated and you’d like personalized support applying this insight to your fundraising and leadership, you can learn more about working with Erin at:  https://vitalistcoaching.com Fundraising doesn’t require changing who you are.  It requires becoming more conscious of who you already are. Send Erin a text Book your 1:1 Brave and Balanced Breakthrough Coaching Session here: https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthrough ✨ Stay Connected & Continue Your Fundraising Growth Listen to all episodes + subscribe: https://thebraveandbalancedfundraiser.buzzsprout.com Join the community: The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser Facebook Group 👉 https://www.facebook.com/groups/braveandbalancedfundraiser Book a Brave & Balanced Breakthrough Call: A personalized 1:1 session to support your inner clarity and fundraising wellbeing. 👉 https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthrough Learn more about Erin’s coaching & nervous-system based support: VitalistCoaching.com Connect on Instagram: @erinmcquadewright

    28 min

  4. MAR 24

    Fundraising Resilience: What Are You Making It Mean?

    How donor “no’s,” board scrutiny, and grant rejections shape your nervous system—and how to build real resilience from the inside out. Fundraising is a profession built on exposure to rejection. Donors decline. Boards stress-test your plans. Grants fall through. Finance departments stay cautious. None of this is unusual—but what you make it mean about you can quietly erode your confidence over time. In this episode of The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser, Erin explores the hidden nervous system impact of repeated “failures to be perfect” and why resilience in fundraising isn’t about grit—it’s about recovery. You’ll learn: Why personalization is the biggest threat to fundraising resilienceThe cumulative nervous system effect of repeated rejectionHow to tell if you’re becoming more resilient—or more reactiveWhy resilience cannot be outsourced to donor behaviorProven, research-backed tools to build internal steadinessThis episode includes practical reframing questions, a 90-second emotional processing tool, and simple nervous system resets you can use immediately after setbacks. Journal Prompt: What am I making this mean about me? If you want support strengthening your resilience and leading from clarity instead of bracing, you’re invited to explore working with Erin. You’ll find the link in the show notes. Send Erin a text Book your 1:1 Brave and Balanced Breakthrough Coaching Session here: https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthrough ✨ Stay Connected & Continue Your Fundraising Growth Listen to all episodes + subscribe: https://thebraveandbalancedfundraiser.buzzsprout.com Join the community: The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser Facebook Group 👉 https://www.facebook.com/groups/braveandbalancedfundraiser Book a Brave & Balanced Breakthrough Call: A personalized 1:1 session to support your inner clarity and fundraising wellbeing. 👉 https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthrough Learn more about Erin’s coaching & nervous-system based support: VitalistCoaching.com Connect on Instagram: @erinmcquadewright

    28 min

  5. MAR 17

    Reactive Boss, Constant Pivoting: How Fundraisers Handle Workplace Whiplash Without Burning Out

    How to stop managing everyone else’s anxiety and protect your clarity, confidence, and fundraising results. If your workplace feels like emotional whiplash—full speed ahead on a campaign one day, questioning the entire strategy the next—you’re not imagining it. Reactive leadership creates instability, and fundraisers often end up absorbing the emotional fallout. Here’s the hard truth: you cannot regulate another adult. Not your boss. Not your board chair. Not your colleague. (If that’s hard to swallow, Erin references The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins*.) What you can regulate is yourself. In this solo episode, Erin breaks down how nervous system dysregulation shows up as constant pivoting, second-guessing, and emotional contagion in fundraising workplaces—and how to stop unconsciously managing everyone else’s anxiety as part of your job description. You’ll learn how to: Recognize when workplace chaos is a nervous system issue, not a strategy issueStop personalizing reactive leadershipIdentify what overwhelm feels like in your body before it hijacks your decision-makingWelcome difficult emotions instead of suppressing them (and why neuroscience supports this)Protect your clarity, confidence, and fundraising effectiveness—even when leadership feels unstableErin also shares a simple regulation ritual you can try immediately—including a medicinal-strength lavender and chamomile tea practice—to help you discharge stress and return to steadiness. Because steady fundraisers raise more money.  Clear-headed leaders make better decisions.  And burnout is not a prerequisite for impact. Journal Prompt: What am I trying really hard not to feel? If you want support applying this in real time—whether you’re navigating a reactive boss or noticing your own leadership insecurity—Erin offers coaching designed specifically for fundraisers working in high-pressure environments. You’ll find the link to connect below. Send Erin a text Book your 1:1 Brave and Balanced Breakthrough Coaching Session here: https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthrough ✨ Stay Connected & Continue Your Fundraising Growth Listen to all episodes + subscribe: https://thebraveandbalancedfundraiser.buzzsprout.com Join the community: The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser Facebook Group 👉 https://www.facebook.com/groups/braveandbalancedfundraiser Book a Brave & Balanced Breakthrough Call: A personalized 1:1 session to support your inner clarity and fundraising wellbeing. 👉 https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthrough Learn more about Erin’s coaching & nervous-system based support: VitalistCoaching.com Connect on Instagram: @erinmcquadewright

    19 min

  6. MAR 10

    Fundraising From Abundance with Beth Ann Locke

    Practical major gift strategies to reduce fundraising anxiety, build trust, and stop operating from pressure—with insights from a 30-year fundraising veteran. Major gifts aren’t just strategy—they’re state. In this episode of The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser, Erin is joined by major gift specialist Beth Ann Locke, a 30-year fundraising veteran who teaches connection-based, customized strategies that grow major gifts without turning fundraisers into exhausted social butterflies or transactional “donor-chasers.” Together, they explore what happens inside a fundraiser’s nervous system when money pressure is high, confidence is battered, or the workplace rewards hustle over relationship. Beth Ann offers practical ways to build donor conversations around trust, curiosity, and alignment—plus simple operational shifts that create more capacity (like deep-work boundaries and post-meeting decompression time). They also discuss Beth Ann’s role in catalyzing the early sexual harassment survey that helped prompt AFP’s broader research—bringing visibility to a workplace reality too many fundraisers have been forced to carry alone. In this episode, you’ll learn: Why “everyone is a prospect” is a fast track to burnout—and what to do insteadA powerful reframe for donor silence (and how to stop personalizing it)What “non-extractive” donor engagement actually sounds likePractical ways to protect deep work and reduce internal interruption overloadWhy naming harassment and bullying in fundraising workplaces changes the cultureConnect with Beth Ann Locke: Instagram: @thefundraisercoachLinkedIn: Beth Ann LockeBlog: Follow her writing for major gifts + fundraising leadership insights at https://www.thefundraisercoach.com/If this episode helped you, share it with a fundraiser friend who’s been carrying too much pressure—and leave a review so more fundraisers can find the support they deserve. Send Erin a text Book your 1:1 Brave and Balanced Breakthrough Coaching Session here: https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthrough ✨ Stay Connected & Continue Your Fundraising Growth Listen to all episodes + subscribe: https://thebraveandbalancedfundraiser.buzzsprout.com Join the community: The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser Facebook Group 👉 https://www.facebook.com/groups/braveandbalancedfundraiser Book a Brave & Balanced Breakthrough Call: A personalized 1:1 session to support your inner clarity and fundraising wellbeing. 👉 https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthrough Learn more about Erin’s coaching & nervous-system based support: VitalistCoaching.com Connect on Instagram: @erinmcquadewright

    1h 3m

  7. MAR 3

    Is Your Fundraising Working, or Just Wearing You Out?

    How to Measure Fundraising Success Beyond Dollars Raised What does it really mean for fundraising to be “working”? Most fundraisers are trained to answer that question by looking at external metrics: dollars raised, donor retention, number of asks, meetings held, emails sent. And while those numbers matter, they don’t tell the whole story. In this episode of The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser, Erin McQuade-Wright invites you to look at fundraising success through a wider lens—one that includes not just outcomes, but internal cost. How are you sleeping? Are you able to rest when you’re off work? What’s happening in your nervous system as you move through donor conversations, deadlines, and expectations? You’ll explore the difference between external metrics and internal metrics, how chronic stress and anxiety affect fundraising performance, and why a regulated nervous system is not a “nice to have,” but a professional asset. This episode is for fundraisers who are technically successful—and quietly exhausted—and who suspect there might be a more sustainable way to do this work. If you’ve ever wondered whether your fundraising is working… or just wearing you out, this conversation is for you. Send Erin a text Book your 1:1 Brave and Balanced Breakthrough Coaching Session here: https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthrough ✨ Stay Connected & Continue Your Fundraising Growth Listen to all episodes + subscribe: https://thebraveandbalancedfundraiser.buzzsprout.com Join the community: The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser Facebook Group 👉 https://www.facebook.com/groups/braveandbalancedfundraiser Book a Brave & Balanced Breakthrough Call: A personalized 1:1 session to support your inner clarity and fundraising wellbeing. 👉 https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthrough Learn more about Erin’s coaching & nervous-system based support: VitalistCoaching.com Connect on Instagram: @erinmcquadewright

    17 min

  8. FEB 26 ·  BONUS

    A Guided Meditation to Release Fundraising Anxiety

    A calming, somatic reset to help you regulate, soften, and return to yourself. This gentle guided meditation is your nervous-system reset—a place to soften the pressure, reconnect with yourself, and release the anxious momentum that fundraising can create. In this bonus episode, Erin leads you through a grounding practice designed to help you separate who you are from the sensations of anxiety moving through your body. You’ll tune into love, safety, breath, and presence… and remember that anxiety is not a personal failing, but a messenger asking for compassion and attention. This meditation will help you: Slow down an activated nervous systemMeet anxious sensations with warmth instead of fearReconnect with someone or something you loveCreate internal spaciousness when your thoughts feel tightReturn to a grounded sense of “I am not my anxiety”Use this anytime you feel overwhelmed, tense, or disconnected from yourself. Your inner world is yours to lead—and every time you pause to reset, you’re building the resilience that supports you, your donors, and your mission. Send Erin a text ✨ Stay Connected & Continue Your Fundraising Growth Listen to all episodes + subscribe: https://thebraveandbalancedfundraiser.buzzsprout.com Join the community: The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser Facebook Group 👉 https://www.facebook.com/groups/braveandbalancedfundraiser Book a Brave & Balanced Breakthrough Call: A personalized 1:1 session to support your inner clarity and fundraising wellbeing. 👉 https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthrough Learn more about Erin’s coaching & nervous-system based support: VitalistCoaching.com Connect on Instagram: @erinmcquadewright

    9 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
8 Ratings

About

The Brave and Balanced Fundraiser is the podcast I wish had existed during my 15 years in fundraising. It’s a love offering to the people behind the mission—the professional fundraisers who give their hearts and energy every day to make the world better. This show isn’t about strategy, metrics, or money. It’s about you—the human being doing the work. Each episode offers real tools and soulful conversations to help you regulate your nervous system, reconnect with your purpose, and renew your energy so you can lead with clarity, compassion, and courage. If you’ve ever felt stretched thin, overworked, or caught in the constant pressure to perform, this podcast is your invitation to return home to yourself. Join me to learn how to cultivate balance, resilience, and authentic impact—from the inside out. Full Episode Transcript: https://share.descript.com/view/fkFZpmNYF3v

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