Strategy, leadership, and real talk from the field, for nonprofit leaders, small business owners, and anyone building something that matters.
Some boards have been unknowingly breaking Virginia's committee rules for years. Others held the line and lost great volunteers over it. Here's what changes January 1, 2027, and what your board should do before then.
Read More →Ciarra and I moved in together, got frustrated with cardboard boxes, and started Old Town Totes. We launched with no ad budget and no following. Overnight, two hundred likes. Here's the honest first chapter.
Read More →Mission clarity, community as strategy, engaged stakeholders, transparency, and purpose-driven culture. Five lessons small business owners can steal from nonprofits, whether they want to or not.
Read More →Revenue diversification, customer obsession, speed, brand management, and outcome measurement. Five lessons nonprofit leaders can take directly from small business, whether they like it or not.
Read More →Luke 12:48 and a Twain quote about the two most important days of your life. What growing up in rooms full of access and philanthropy actually taught me — and what it asks of anyone who had the same.
Read More →Leaving a job, leaving a house of ten years, and starting a second company in the middle of a move. On welcoming change you didn't ask for, plus a first look at Old Town Totes.
Read More →Organizations in the same city, serving the same population, drawing from the same donor pool — and most of them have never had a real conversation with each other. On nonprofit silos, duplication, and what it actually costs when nobody talks.
Read More →A packed calendar can hide a business losing money on half its jobs. The simple audit that tells you which clients are actually paying you back.
Read More →Guilt is not a pricing strategy. Owners who flinch at their own prices are training customers not to trust the value either.
Read More →Most owners aren't losing money from bad bets. They're losing it in small, forgettable increments on things nobody has looked at in years. Subscriptions, software, vendor contracts, operational drag — the quiet stuff that keeps compounding.
Read More →Donors give because they believe in the mission, sure, but also for tax strategy, visibility, and legacy. Why honest fundraising raises more money than romanticized fundraising.
Read More →Most "accountability" in nonprofits and small businesses is really a leader who hired someone good and never let them prove it. On merit, micromanagement, and real delegation.
Read More →Getting a seat on the board is the achievement everyone celebrates. The real work starts after you sit down. On board orthodoxy, zombie nonprofits, and why "we've always done it this way" is the most dangerous phrase in the room.
Read More →A full-time COO can run a small business $300K a year. Here's the real cost gap, and how a flexible executive, flexible fit, flexible price model can put that same caliber of judgment within reach of a Winchester-sized business.
Read More →Every summer, well-meaning people say yes to board seats with no idea what they're walking into. Here's what both prospective board members and the organizations recruiting them need to hear before July arrives.
Read More →Guest post: Kimberley Hartman Wilt traces thirty-five years of charitable-giving data and finds a quieter story underneath it. America didn't stop giving. It stopped gathering.
Read More →SEO levels the playing field for small businesses. Here are three practical strategies you can implement this weekend to start showing up where your customers are already searching.
Read More →The MBA and the nonprofit work and the board seats are all real. But if you want to actually know who you are about to work with, the bio is the starting point, not the whole story.
Read More →Most nonprofits don't fail dramatically. They fade gradually, running on institutional momentum long after the strategy that built them stopped working. Here's how to tell if yours is overdue.
Read More →Your marketing plan is not your strategy. Neither is your mission statement or your to-do list. Here's what real strategy actually is, and why the difference matters more than you think.
Read More →An insider look at the regional nonprofit ecosystem, its genuine strengths, its honest gaps, and what the Valley needs to grow its impact over the next decade.
Read More →After three days with 400 nonprofit leaders at a national conference, here's what the sector's most urgent conversations are, and what every organization, funder, and community partner needs to hear.
Read More →Book a free 30-minute discovery call. No pressure, no pitch, just a real conversation about where you are, where you want to go, and whether we're the right fit.
Book Your Free Discovery CallOr reach out directly: andy@gailconsultinggroup.com · 314.749.1419