Life & Leadership with Kim Williams

Episode 100 | How to Face the Inevitable Budget Deficit

Episode 100 — How to Face the Inevitable Budget Deficit A third of nonprofits saw federal funding decline last year, and nearly three in ten saw cuts in state and local support. If your organization is behind goal, you are not the exception. In this milestone hundredth episode, Kim shares three deficits from her own fifteen years leading a nonprofit, one inherited, one funder-driven, one government-driven, and the three-step framework she uses to size up a shortfall before ever touching a strategy. She walks through the exact playbook that carried her through every one of them, and what it took to go from a $500,000 gap to closing an $11.5 million capital campaign.

Episode 99 | Take One Action Today to Win at Year-End

Episode 99: The Mid-Year Reset Every Nonprofit Leader Needs to Make Mid-Year Reset Series, Part 1 — Leadership Mentality Halfway through the year, your January plan meets July's reality, and it rarely matches. Kim opens the Mid-Year Reset series with the mindset shift that has to happen before any strategy work can: the willingness to face where things actually stand. Drawing on fifteen years as CEO of Interfaith Family Services, she shares three strategies for leading through a mid-year reality check: reality-check and acceptance, the mentality shift, and speaking points and self-care.

Episode 98 | The Programs That Changed Everything: The Power of Engaged Giving

The number of donors giving less than $500 annually dropped by 5 percent in 2024. Large in-person galas and traditional direct mail are declining in effectiveness. But volunteerism is up 7 percent. Monthly giving programs are growing. Corporate social responsibility budgets are increasingly shifting toward employee engagement experiences, not just corporate check-writing. What donors and corporate partners want right now is not just a receipt and a thank-you letter. They want a meaningful connection to the work. Organizations that design giving programs around that desire are seeing dramatically better retention and dramatically stronger relationships. Today, we explore the power of engaged giving.

Episode 97 | From $20,000 to Six Figures: What North Texas Giving Day Taught Me About Community Trust

For four consecutive years, the number of individual donors to American nonprofits has declined. The steepest drop is at the bottom of the pyramid, donors giving under $500. At the same time, major donor and corporate giving has grown, which means total revenue numbers can look stable even as the base of community support is quietly eroding. That erosion matters more than the dollar amount. A broad, active community of small donors is one of the most important signals of organizational credibility you can send to foundation funders, government partners, and major donors. It says: this organization matters to people, not just to institutions. Today, we talk about how to stop the decline and invest in the future.

Episode 96 | Stop Asking Donors to Fund Growth. Ask Them to Fund Excellence.

What if I told you that the most powerful fundraising ask you could make right now has nothing to do with serving more people? What if the ask that would inspire your most loyal, long-term donors is not about expanding your programs at all? Today, I want to challenge one of the most deeply held assumptions in the social sector: that growth is always the story donors want to hear.