53. Optimizing Your Resources, Operations, & Strategies for Organizational Growth with Jhana Li

Do you ever feel that you’re spinning your wheels or being penny-wise and pound-foolish? My guest on this episode of What the Fundraising is here with some straight talk about managing operations efficiently and effectively. A consultant who helps small businesses scale, Jhana Li is a systems thinker with a gift for optimizing organizations from both the 30,000-foot and three-foot levels. This conversation offers a framework to audit your organizational health. Plus practical tips for making change!

Jhana walks us through core resources for early start-up development as well as key systems to support transformation through scaling stages. You’ll recognize some insights that are especially relevant to the nonprofit world. For instance: Are you a serial “helper” or “fix-it” addict who feels constantly compelled to do, facilitate, cure, and manage? Consider whether that behavior is actually serving you or the co-workers who – deprived of the opportunity to take on new tasks – forfeit an opportunity for growth. Or perhaps you default to a scarcity mindset that renders you too fearful to invest in important systems critical to sustaining your work? Jhana not only urges a shift of focus to the big-picture and all the resources you’re expending and can never get back, but she also gives tactical and practical ways to do so. This is the episode I wish I had as a Managing Director and Executive Director - it would have completely changed the way I looked at my organization's resources and planned for growth. Listen now to learn how to audit your organizational health & optimize your resources for growth. 

You might also be interested in taking my Fundraising Superpower Quiz to learn more about you can optimize your natural fundraising talents.

Episode Highlights:

(02:20) – A brief intro to Jhana and her consulting

(03:45) – Why it’s important for organizational plans to incorporate bespoke elements based on size and stage of business development

(05:24) – Center early operations around these four core resources

(08:50) Defining energy as a core resource 

(10:05) Have you measured your effective hourly value? 

(11:29) Time is the only core resource that appreciates

(13:37) Personal task audits

(15:13) How to let go and delegate

(17:14) Mallory shares the realization that once prompted her to demote herself. 

(18:35) Organizations at their best serve as a vehicle for growth among all stakeholders. 

(22:10) About setting boundaries, especially in the helper-oriented nonprofit space. 

(24:04) Saying no at the moment may be challenging, but the ROI is compelling. 

(27:34) Mallory double-clicks on another facet of “helper energy” (which is so prominent in the nonprofit sector). 

(28:48) Do you have a “fix-it” style of leadership?

(29:58) Case Study: What would Jhana do to corral employees who have to be constantly reminded to fill out timecards? 

(32:05) Want to maximize your team members’ performance? 

(35:30) Getting decisive about investments in your nonprofit 

(37:15) Try a time audit 

(38:37) Learn more about Jhana and book a discovery session with her.