The Nonprofit Science Podcast

What if the storytelling practices you were trained on are quietly causing harm and you don't even know it? In this episode, host Sheela Mahajan sits down with Diana Farias Heinrich, founder of Habra Marketing and host of the Ethical Nonprofit Summit, to dig into the ethics of nonprofit storytelling. They cover the power dynamics hiding in everyday language, why "donor as hero" is more...

How do you know your program is working? You know it works and you see it every day. But translating that into evidence that satisfies stakeholders? That's where things get complicated.In this episode, we dig into peer-reviewed research to understand why impact measurement is so challenging and what works. We explore the five factors that make measurement credible, why starting with purpose beats...

"Collaboration" has become one of the most diluted words in the nonprofit sector. Funders push for it, grant applications require it, and yet most partnerships are coordination at best, administrative burden at worst.Dr. Priyanka Brunese and Pallavi Gupta of Saath Partners have spent years researching why some cross-sector partnerships create genuine value while others stall out. In this episode,...

We talk a lot about best practices in this sector, but what if the better question is: how do we keep getting better?In this episode, I sit down with Leah Kral— author of Innovation for Social Change: How Wildly Successful Nonprofits Inspire and Deliver Results—to explore how nonprofit organizations can embrace experimentation without big budgets or safety nets.Leah shares her journey from the...

What does it really mean for a nonprofit to succeed? How do you build trust with funders, and does celebrating wins help as much as we think? In this year-end reflection, I share five research articles that genuinely changed how I think about nonprofit work. We'll explore why impact is only one piece of organizational health, what transparency does for donor relationships (spoiler: it's not what...

As the year winds down and your finance team fields last-minute reports, board meeting materials, and budget questions, it's worth asking: is your organization's relationship with money working?In this episode, I sit down with Sean Hale, founder of Nonprofit CFOs, to talk about what healthy financial management really looks like. We dig into why year-end is a particularly tough time for nonprofit...

You send thank-you letters. Your acknowledgements go out like clockwork. But are those thank-yous actually working?In this episode, we dive deep into the research on donor appreciation- and what we find may surprise you. Thank-you notes are just one tool in your gratitude toolbox, and their effectiveness depends on how you use them. Studies reveal that acknowledgements have the greatest impact on...

Is Giving Tuesday worth it, or will your appeal just get lost in the noise?It may feel like you're competing against thousands of other organizations for a fixed pool of charitable dollars on Giving Tuesday- there's a reason people refer to it as the "nonprofit hunger games." But what if this assumption is wrong? In this episode, we dive into research that suggests giving days like Giving Tuesday...

You know GivingTuesday as this massive global day of generosity. But, alongside leading this movement, GivingTuesday’s research team has been building a powerful data resource for the entire nonprofit sector. On this episode, we are joined by Samir Khan, Director of Research at GivingTuesday. He shares how their Data Commons is making critical fundraising analysis available for nonprofits of all...

What if your donors' most valuable contributions aren't their checks? Research reveals that nonprofits tracking only financial donations could have a blind spot. Other forms of capital- such as social capital, relational capital, and network effects- might actually predict long-term sustainability more than immediate financial donations do.In this episode, we explore why a donor's social...