5 Priceless Podcasts to Help Your Nonprofit Run Smoothly

Podcasts are a great way to hear from the nonprofit industry influencers personally and glean some of their information from their numerous years in the industry. Many of them have insightful advice into the inner workings of nonprofits and how to do better at what they do everyday. But just as you’re making the world a better place, sometimes you need to make your world a better place. We care a lot about the “soft stuff” at Nonprofit Megaphone. From everything to culture, meetings and inner business strategies, these five podcasts have all you need for a short and sweet course on how you can make your internal operations run smoothly.

1. Nonprofit Hub Radio: Beth Kanter- Creating a Culture Of Self Care

Your internal culture is just as important and your work helping people. If your employees and volunteers are burned out or burning out, everyone becomes less productive and less effective, not to mention unhealthy. Beth Kanter joins Randy Hawthorne to discuss her co-authored book, “The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit.” In this podcast, she shares her journey to discovering the importance of a self-care culture, as well as some applicable tips that your nonprofit can utilize in your own culture. This will revolutionize the way you think about your culture. Check out Nonprofit Hub’s full list of podcasts here.

2. Nonprofit Ally: Better Meetings With Robert’s Rules

While you might be tempted to reject this principle because Robert’s Rules of Order sound stuffy and uninviting, this podcast is a must listen if your meetings tend to drag on or are disorganized. Steve Vicks, creator of Nonprofit Ally, interviews Susan Leahy, queen of organized meetings. Adapting Robert’s Rules isn’t a must to have a successful meeting, and Susan shares other ideas to bring more organization into your boardroom. The bottom line is: Find a meeting organizational structure that works for you and stick to it. Check out Nonprofit Ally’s many, many podcasts here.

3. Nonprofit Optimist: How To Be A Valuable Board Member

Your board members are (should) be an integral part of your nonprofit, but sometimes it’s hard to utilize them. Molly MacCready interviews Emily Richardson, PhD, to find out what makes the Nanubhai Education Foundation's board a successful part of their nonprofit. Emily shares her tips and tricks to ensure that your board is valuable and that you’re a valuable part of your board. This is definitely worth a listen, if only to learn about the awesome work that Nanubhai Education Foundation is doing for women in rural India. Check out the rest of Nonprofit Optimist’s episodes here.

4. Nonprofits Are Messy: Building a Great Development Team

Whether you’re a small nonprofit looking to hire one person or a large nonprofit looking to hire an ace team, this podcast is your guide. Seth Rosen shares his tips for small and large nonprofits alike to help you grow the development team of your dreams. Even if you’re not in a place where you have the resources to start your development team, listen and bookmark this awesome podcast for the future—it can only help you.  Find the rest of the Nonprofits Are Messy podcasts here.

5.Nonprofit U: Developing Effective Grant Writing Strategies

Grant writing is one of the best tools you can have in your arsenal to keep your nonprofit sustained. In this episode of Nonprofit U, Noah Temaner Jenkins gives you easy, doable ways to get started grant writing—from the proposal writing cycle to implementation. No matter whether you’re a longtime grant writer or a novice, you’ll most definitely learn something from Noah’s expertise. Find the rest of the Nonprofit U episodes here.

Whether you have time to listen to these great podcasts today, on your commute tomorrow or next week, make sure you schedule out some time to hear all of these wonderful experts share their tips on how to better your inner workings as a nonprofit. You can only grow from hearing these tips and make your nonprofit a better place to work at. So, go forth and make your nonprofit a better place!

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Written by Sam Ernest, Kathi Gross and Grant Hensel