Jun 12, 2026 · 46 min · 10 segments
Bill Crouch spent two decades as a college president before founding BrightDot, a consulting firm that has worked with over 150 nonprofits to fix the one problem most of them refuse to name: they do…
Bill CrouchGuestJosephHostBefore we get into the specific programming and focus you have with fundraisers, I wanted to talk about just the sector in general.
You've had the opportunity to speak to a lot of nonprofit leaders.
What would you say is maybe a common thread through them that has led them to want to have roles and focus on the nonprofit sector specifically? Like, is it Is it their search for meaning as a human being? Is it because they saw a huge need? I'm wondering if you have some common themes of that persona.
So we believe that 90 to 95% of all people who work for nonprofits grew up in lower to middle class families.
So I would say that the majority of these leaders that I've gotten to know through the years are there because they want to serve others.
And as they begin to develop in their careers, certain other things happen and they began to develop some ambition and the ambition leads them to different positions that ultimately, you know, give it, get them to the top of their, their organization, but they still carry that why with them.
And in most cases, The nonprofit leaders do not have some of the experiences that they're going to need to be successful in running their organization.
And typically they haven't had the training or the education to run the business.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And maybe even scale it.
Right.
And scale the impact.
And then so one of the things and this is kind of relevant because the newer generations coming up.
I have a I feel like at least in the US, Americans are becoming even more individualistic versus collectivistic.
And I think that's being fueled by like social media and lack of interacting with human beings as often.
And I think there's some pros and cons of that.
Before we get into the specific programming and focus you have with fundraisers, I wanted to talk about just the sector in general.
You've had the opportunity to speak to a lot of nonprofit leaders.
What would you say is maybe a common thread through them that has led them to want to have roles and focus on the nonprofit sector specifically? Like, is it Is it their search for meaning as a human being? Is it because they saw a huge need? I'm wondering if you have some common themes of that persona.
So we believe that 90 to 95% of all people who work for nonprofits grew up in lower to middle class families.
So I would say that the majority of these leaders that I've gotten to know through the years are there because they want to serve others.
And as they begin to develop in their careers, certain other things happen and they began to develop some ambition and the ambition leads them to different positions that ultimately, you know, give it, get them to the top of their, their organization, but they still carry that why with them.
And in most cases, The nonprofit leaders do not have some of the experiences that they're going to need to be successful in running their organization.
And typically they haven't had the training or the education to run the business.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And maybe even scale it.
Right.
And scale the impact.
And then so one of the things and this is kind of relevant because the newer generations coming up.
I have a I feel like at least in the US, Americans are becoming even more individualistic versus collectivistic.
And I think that's being fueled by like social media and lack of interacting with human beings as often.
And I think there's some pros and cons of that.
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