Reflections on three years of Nonprofit Visions, and what's next
- Anthony Betori
- May 12
- 5 min read
If you’ve come up in nonprofits, you know it can get messy. There’s a scarcity we inhabit: Is there enough general operating money coming in? Can we afford these program supplies? What’s available for professional development? Am I getting a raise this year?
Scarcity becomes, for so many of us, what we breathe. It defines how we make decisions. Even with strategic plans and dedicated staff and community buy-in, if feels like there’s never enough, really.
I’ve never been able to make peace with this mindset, for so many reasons. It’s why I started my small business, Nonprofit Visions, and it’s what guides me today in this field.
I don’t think I have all the answers, but after 14 years in the field, I do have some things to say. Today, I’m starting my blog with a couple of those things that I’ve got to get out of my head and into the world - so thanks for joining me. Let’s dive in.
In 2019, I was establishing myself in a middle management role at a nonprofit. I had the basic pieces - I knew how to do a simple budget, I could navigate staff supervision, grant applications were no big deal, and I was starting to understand what strategy in this world actually means.
2019 me! With future coworkers Melanie and Molly. If we only knew what the future held.
Brave of me to wear suspenders, also.
#ThanksBirthControl day, 2019 - and our coordinated shirts.
My organization sent me to a Nonprofit Management Certification program at the San Antonio Area Foundation, and it cracked my world open. I’d read management books, but this was different - I was engaging peers and experts on what it meant to do this work.
We were getting into the sticky stuff, the parts of management without clear answers. I found myself talking about things like risk management, end-of-year-giving, ROI, foreign words that I fumbled around with, trying to become more fluent. But I was in. I knew this was where I wanted to be. And I made a promise to myself - I’d get good enough at nonprofit management to someday teach a course in that same program. Did I get there? Stay tuned 🤠
2023: We’re in the aftershocks of the pandemic, and the previous three years have been a whirlwind.
We were all adapting to everything all the time, but I also had become firmly devoted to being curious and trying to figure out how to do it all better. I had coworkers and colleagues and friends who were down for the journey, too. We were talking about what it meant to be a leader, about what values look like when they’re not hollow or just on a web page, about the role of nonprofits in both preserving and alleviating oppressive structures. We were looking for answers.
Also, importantly, I was midway through my Masters in Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, where I was surrounded by the most incredible and engaged public health practitioners from all over the country.
Special shout out to the best small group of all time from Problem Solving in Public Health.
And of course, a shout out to my co-conspirator Sophia. We are public health.
2023 was when I asked the San Antonio Area Foundation to consider adding a course on program development to the certification program. We worked on some ideas, I did a practice version with their staff, and by the Fall of 2023, the dream I had in 2019 came true. I facilitated my first ever course in the Nonprofit Management Certificate program.
I’ve never really been one for manifestos, because what we believe must be changeable, must be revised, must be revisited in new circumstances. But that first Area Foundation course, Essentials of Program Development, was in many ways a manifesto. It was the five core strategies I believed were “essential” to “develop programs.” It was not easy to open up what I believe to the world, and there was some level of delusion involved for me to think that I had the answers, but it turns out I had some. And I was good at asking questions, too. And that’s where Nonprofit Visions was born.
2026: After three years of managing this little consultancy, I’ve learned a lot and realized I’ve got a lot more to learn, but the core elements remain true. Here’s some of what I believe after three years in nonprofit management consulting, and what guides my work:
Nonprofit leaders are doing their best, with what little they have, and it still often feels like it's not enough
Nonprofits can be crushed under the weight of bureaucracy, even though they're doing what they think is best, and often deny this until it becomes a crisis
Management in nonprofits is not adequately supported - there’s often no real time or resources to learn what it means to manage, mentor, supervise, or strategize
But,
Given the space, the safety, and the push to do so, nonprofit leaders make brave choices that make the work they do stronger, better, and more sustainable - one might say, they have a clearer "vision" ... 😉
That’s the place where I live, in Nonprofit Visions. I invite leaders to come to a space where we are learning together, and it’s ok if everything is a mess and you don’t know what to do next. We take the big ideas of nonprofit management and break them up into little successes. And it’s from there that we start to see change, where leaders generate thriving teams and programs.
So, what’s next?
A blog!
I’ll be exploring some of the core pieces that guide my nonprofit management philosophy. In a moment where it feels like it might be worse than ever before, I invite you to join me in building the future we’d rather live in. We can control some things. We will get better at this. We must.
And aside from the blog, we’ll see! I’ve got lots of great classes coming up, some new and some old, and there’s some exciting coaching work with executives who are building out their programs. If you’ve got an idea, let’s chat!
To be honest, this is a small shop. It’s just me for now, and I refer a bunch of the requests I get out to other contractors because I’ve got a full-time gig (which might be changing soon due to federal funding stuff - woo!). But I’m entering a new era of abundance, and I’m inviting you along. Let’s cook something up.
P.S. -
This blog is certified AI-free, and partly inspired by Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff. Thank you to that book and author for helping me get my butt off the couch and into my office chair to write these ideas I’ve had for ages.
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