Next in Nonprofits

Evaluation Essentials with Dr. Beth DaPonte

Dr. Beth DaPonte is the author of the new edition of Essential Evaluations and a consulting serving nonprofit organizations from Social Science Consultants. Dr. DaPonte has served with the Office of Internal Oversight Services of the United Nations and been a Lecturer, Yale School of Management amongst many other roles.

Beth joins host Steve Boland to talk about the new edition of her Evaluations Essentials book, and why and how nonprofit organizations can develop and use program evaluation in their work. She discusses the basics of a theory of change, logic models, and more. The book covers ideas including early literature reviews, the use of a program evaluation reference group to provide a broad array of stakeholders to prioritize questions and access in evaluation. Beth talks about how unexpected challenges over time in evaluation (COVID shut downs for example) can become part of the evaluation story. (Also, thanks to XKCD for the causation v. correlation cartoon!).

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Judy Garland Museum for #Podcasthon 2026

Janie Heitz is the Executive Director, and John Kelsch is founder and Curator, of the Judy Garland Museum. The Museum is home to an eclectic Judy Garland and Wizard of Oz collection and is housed in the 1920’s restored birthplace home of Judy Garland in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. #Podcasthon is an annual event asking podcasts to highlight the work of a single charity

John and Janie tell the story of the founding of the museum, the evolution of the work over the decades since it's founding over fifty years ago, and much more. One of the more unusual stories of the Museum involves the theft of the Ruby Slippers from the Wizard of Oz, which were in the Museum at that time for display. The slippers were eventually recovered, and documentaries about that part of the story have been made since that time.

The Museum is a part of the Grand Rapids community, but also a larger fan community across the world. Learn more at their website about how to visit the museum and learn more. Donations are welcome!

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Scene Change with Alan Harrison

Alan Harrison is the author of the Scene Change book series, and has worked for 30 years in the nonprofits arts sector.

Alan begins his book series with the first Scene Change book emphasizing the importance of community impact in their missions. The next book speaks to the role of boards of directors in this mission work, and now there is Scene Change 3, with stories of nonprofit arts organizations which can show their impact in community.

Alan says art is essential for human beings, and artists are magical in their creation. He goes on to emphasize the need for metrics of success for nonprofits that goes beyond just the production of art and public participation through things like ticket sales. Scene Change 3 contains examples to help charities focus on their changes in community.

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Mutual Aid with Brittan Stockert

Brittan Stockert is a fundraising coach with DonorBox, a donor management platform with a mission "to do everything in our power to support nonprofit organizations in their efforts to make a difference." Brittan's role is to help "nonprofits and social-impact organizations build sustainable fundraising strategies by strengthening donor relationships, improving CRM systems, and simplifying day-to-day fundraising."

Brittan joins the podcast to talk about the evolution of thinking in mutual aid - direct giving from donor to recipient without a formal charity in the loop. Brittan talks about the history of mutual aid, and the changes in how mutual aid is moving forward since the pandemic, uprisings, and resistance movements in 2026 and beyond. Britt talks about trust as a key factor in both mutual aid giving and giving to support formal charities.

Mutual aid support in the present moment relies on community-based trust, but also relies on traditional nonprofits to eschew "main character energy" and center the immediate needs with trust in community. Younger or new donors may be quicker to let go of control or power, and institutional charities may do well to follow suite and let go of some power in these situations. NEXT in Nonprofits has a blog post on mutual aid in 2026. People interested in connecting with Britt on coaching can view her contact page here.

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Strategic planning in 2026 with Carlo Cuesta

Carlo Cuesta is a co-founder of Creation in Common, "Growing Social Impact with Nonprofits, Foundations, and Government since 2002." Strategic planning is one of the core services offered by Creation in Common.

Host Steve Boland asked Carlo to join to discuss the state of strategic planning in 2026, when the level of chaos feels so overwhelming. Carlo reinforced the idea that strategic plans are for tools to help make better decisions today, and looking back at the last 90 days can be a key tool - especially in times for volatility - can help. Carlo notes a thought from Bill Gates "Most people overestimate what they can achieve in one year and underestimate what they can achieve in ten years" and how it can apply to thinking longer term in planning if that is what is called for in the day.

Carlo goes on to suggest we need to put plans into a resource context - how will this work be resourced? Another favorite quote from this conversation is "All models are wrong, but some are useful." "what happens when assumptions that were long-term reliable end up being unreliable?" Listen to the full episode to learn to expect "more is not a strategy" t-shirts sometime soon!

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2026 Metricool Social Media Study with Anniston Ward

Anniston Ward is the USA PR, Events and Education Manager for Metricool, a social media aggregator for publishing information which integrates to other analytics sources to look at impact of your organization's online presence.

Host KD Bauer talks to Anniston about Metricool and how content aggregators and analysis tools function, including core features such as scheduling posts across multiple platforms and bring analytics in, having teams contributing to the process, and allow approval and feedback across team roles.

The 2026 Social Media Study from Metricool benefits from data from 3 million Metricool users to show trends and can be compared to past results (see the 2025 study as well). The report shows video content continues to be dominant, and encourages organizations to consider video even if it is more challenging to produce. Anniston also urges groups to move beyond simple impressions as the primary measure of success and to consider other measures such as shares, saves, and direct actions like clicking through to a website or signing up for more information. Anniston and KD talk about "trend chasing" (such as using memes), the importance of consistency in a brand voice or mission to building an audience over time, commenting on social issues and authenticity, and much more!

DAFinitive with Melissa Bank Stepno

Melissa Bank Stepno is the President & CEO of The Helen Brown Group and the Managing Director of DAFinitive, "the only searchable database that helps you find more information about donor advised funds."

Melissa joins the podcast to talk about the decision to create and manage a database in the increasingly large field of donor advised funds. Melissa describes how her team uses human-powered sources to research giving using DAFs, and catalogs that information with links out to sources when possible. Those links are often backed-up on Archive.org, the Internet's Way Back Machine, to provide access to source sites that may since have changed or removed the data. The DAFinitive team works to connect the names of donors behind the funds when possible, realizing that sometimes donors are choosing anonymity and sometimes the data is just harder to find. Many family foundations are now using DAFs, and increasingly new donors are eschewing family foundations entirely in favor of DAF giving.

Listeners are welcome to visit DAFinitive.com and request a demo to see the tools in action

Boards and Development with Lori Jacobwith (encore release)

(This holiday season we are re-releasing a conversation with Lori from back in 2018 - with such great information that is still so valuable today. Enjoy this encore, and we'll be back in two weeks with a brand new episode). 

Lori L. Jacobwith is a nationally-recognized master storyteller and fundraising culture change expert who was named one of America’s Top 25 Fundraising Experts. She is the founder of Ignited Fundraising.

Lori joins host Steve Boland to talk about the role of boards of directors in fundraising work for charities, and specifically the challenges and opportunities of board development committees. Lori shares resources available on her website to help think about how creating a fundraising plan and budgeting are critical for any successful board role, and how charities can leverage the strengths of board members to succeed.

Neurogiving with Cherian Koshy

Cherian Koshy is the author of the new book Neurogiving: The Science of Donor Decision-Making. Cherian is "is a globally recognized expert in the science of generosity, decision-making, and leadership. With more than 25 years of experience, he equips organizations and leaders with the tools to create alignment—not pressure—and to design environments where giving, leading, and taking action feel natural."

Cherian joins host Steve Boland to talk about some of the themes in the book (so much more in the book!) regarding the science behind generosity. Cherian describers how attention fragmentation impacts donors, how social comparisons are understood by the brain, why legacy giving is about a lot more than just the charity in question, how to think about the ethics of all of this, and much more!

Time and effort reporting with Patrice Davis

Patrice Davis is the CEO of Grants Works, whose mission is "to help organizations, educational institutions and businesses successfully find, obtain, manage, and comply with federal and other government grants that positively impact people and communities." Patrice first joined the NEXT in Nonprofits podcast in 2021 talking about applying for government grants.

Patrice joins host Steve Boland to discuss the importance of time and effort reporting in grants management. Plans for how time and effort will be reported on grants begins with writing the grant, but continues on in post-grant administration using a grant manager (mostly likely different from grant writer) and the right tools for the right job. Patrice discusses best practices and tools - such as integrating grant restraints into a payroll tool to track costs assigned to a grant expenses.

Patrice also looks at things that impact costs are allocated, such as how much indirect costs may need to be covered in the grant. Some organizations may choose different strategies surrounding these costs. More information about the federal definitions are available in the Code of Federal Regulations here.

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