Episode 323 - Getting REAL About Nonprofit Leadership with Kayla Deitch

What if serving a mission didn't require sacrificing yourself in the process?

In this episode of Circle Up and Get REAL, I sit down with Kayla Deitch, the first full-time Executive Director of the North Dakota Association of Nonprofit Organizations — NDANO.

Kayla stepped into a 30-year-old organization at a moment of change, with an opportunity to listen, build relationships, connect nonprofit leaders across North Dakota, and help imagine what the sector could become.

And there is plenty to imagine.

We talk about the realities many nonprofit leaders are facing: burnout, underpayment, isolation, uncertain funding, and the pressure to keep doing more with less.

But we also talk about possibility.

What happens when nonprofit leaders stop accepting scarcity as part of the job?

What if fair compensation isn't selfish, but part of creating sustainable organizations?

What if nonprofit leaders don't have to figure everything out alone?

And what changes when organizations begin to see one another not as competitors for limited resources, but as potential collaborators?

Kayla shares what she is learning during her first months in the role, why she is spending so much time listening to leaders across the state, how she is thinking about advocacy, and why she believes breaking down silos may be one of the most important things NDANO can do.

We also explore the tension between running a nonprofit like a business and remembering that mission and impact can't always be captured on a spreadsheet.