by Dr. Kevin Dean, President & CEO, Tennessee Nonprofit Network
In our last chapter, our grand plan for a statewide association seemed to have gone to hell. Our carefully built coalition of four regional organizations had crumbled. Just as we were about to present our options, Venture Forward was sunsetting, the leader of Center for Nonprofit Management was leaving, and Alliance for Better Nonprofits was merging. But from the ashes of that failed plan emerged a radical idea: to transition Momentum Nonprofit Partners into the statewide association. My new mission was clear—and incredibly daunting—I had to convince my board that this was the way forward.
I knew I had one shot to convince them. I’ve been a change agent my entire career. From turning around Literacy Mid-South to transforming Alliance for Nonprofit Excellence into Momentum Nonprofit Partners, I’ve gotten used to the pushback, the fear, and people desperately trying to cling to the status quo. I knew this wouldn’t be easy. Luckily, I had the perfect partner in crime: our Board Chair, Mark Jordan. After COVID, Mark had recognized that our board had become a bit disengaged and needed a refresh. He helped us part amicably with members who couldn’t commit and brought in new members who were ready to roll up their sleeves. Meanwhile, board members like Bonnie Hollabaugh were building our infrastructure behind the scenes, a quiet but powerful effort that led us to become the first nonprofit in the state of Tennessee to be accredited by Standards for Excellence. Mark was a leader who understood the crossroads we were at. We met for hours, plotting our strategy. At this point, it wasn’t a plan to become the state association, but rather a plan to begin a discovery process to explore it. I was okay either way, as I still wasn’t sure that I would be staying in this role for much longer.
The Presentation (And the Nap)
With a plan in hand, my staff and I prepared a presentation for the board. Our goal was to show why a state association was needed, what our existing data and feedback had been, the planning we had already done, and how we would gather data to support a statewide expansion. I had prepared a tight, 30-minute presentation, but in my excitement, it ballooned to an hour and a half. I have to admit, when I’m passionate, I tend to talk a lot. When I noticed one of the board members had fallen asleep during my long-winded presentation, I worried I was sunk.
But I wasn’t.
At the end of the presentation, the board voted unanimously to move forward with a discovery process. It was a huge vote of confidence. My job was to spend a good amount of time traveling the state to gain buy-in and get more feedback. This was on top of my existing work, but I was so passionate about this that I didn’t mind. The staff, too, was excited about the prospects and agreed to hold down the fort while I disappeared for weeks at a time to meet with people across the state.
I knew I couldn’t do it alone. My first call was to my friend Abby Garrison, who had led the Venture Forward effort before it sunset. She was my go-to in Chattanooga. Meanwhile, I reached out to Elle Benson, a former Alliance for Better Nonprofits employee who I’d always thought was a star. She had moved to Nashville and quickly built a following there as a consultant. When I talked to Elle, within 30 seconds of pitching the idea, she was all in. She said she would connect me with influential Nashvillians who would see our vision.
A Lot of Convincing (And a Lot of Blank Stares)
I’ll admit, the very first meeting I ever had about this didn’t go according to plan. In fact, it was one of the worst meetings of my life. I quickly learned that I couldn’t assume everyone would be on board with the idea. But immediately after that, I met with Sam Jackson, Sumita Keller, and Kristen Dinger of Healing Trust in Nashville and had the opposite experience. They totally got what we were trying to do, and they were all in. Soon, I was meeting with people I knew before, like Sam Wigand, who had previously worked at CNM, and meeting new folks like Kristine LaLonde, a consultant and adjunct professor with Vanderbilt who was enthusiastic about our work, and Kaki Friskics-Warren, former Executive Director of Maddox Fund, who had already been paying attention to Momentum during COVID. I had a call with Hal Cato, who I had long admired. He had recently become the CEO of Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee and, after a fifteen-minute conversation, said he would help in any way that he could. He helped us schedule feedback sessions in Nashville, which I admit, became more of my passionate, long-winded presentations about the need for a statewide organization.
I quickly came to understand that Nashville was different from Memphis. Whereas Memphians are known for our directness, Nashville was known for the “meetings after the meetings.” This is where the real work happened. The offline conversations were the ones more helpful than anything, as we could unearth the unspoken rules, the politics, and how to navigate it all. I had trouble containing my excitement in the meetings and often lost time to get feedback, but the bulk of the feedback was going to come in the “after meetings” anyway. “Nashville Nice” is a thing, y’all!
We also received a lot of feedback about the additional services people said they needed. Our original plan was to provide public policy and research for the entire state while offering additional capacity-building support only for Memphis, but the feedback was clear: the entire state wanted everything we had to offer. It was daunting.
I also visited Knoxville, Jackson, and Chattanooga, and I had similar experiences. You know the old trope about grumpy old men telling kids to “get off their lawn?” I encountered a similar sentiment, but mostly from folks who viewed us as a threat to their power or money. This was far from the norm and far from the majority. But often, it was influential people and nonprofits who viewed the mere idea of a state association as a threat. Sure, I was run out of a couple of meetings in an almost comedic way, but I was okay with it. I expected it. I don’t tolerate scarcity thinking, and I knew we’d have to bypass folks whose egos and scarcity mindset were in the way.
But I was also open to feedback. If people had credible and compelling reasons why we shouldn’t expand, we were open to hearing them. We wanted to be additive, and most people got it—or were at least curious. Rarely did we have anyone say, “We don’t need this.” At most, when we talked about public policy, people’s eyes would sometimes glaze over, or they would ask incredulously if it was even legal for a 501(c)(3) to do that work. I encountered some pushback in each city, whether it was because we were seen as a threat to funding, or because we were from Memphis (which everyone has opinions about!), or because we were a blue dot in a red state (we are nonpartisan!). But 95% of the time, people seemed excited, or at least curious.
One person who I met with and immediately found a connection with was Phil Trammel of Nonprofit Resource Center in Chattanooga. Nonprofit Resource Center was a startup nonprofit capacity building and training organization that was filling in the gap where Venture Forward had been. You’d think Phil would be one of those folks who would feel like TNN could be a threat. Instead, he welcomed us with open arms, understanding that we could easily compliment each other. Since then, we’ve partnered on grants and programming together in the most natural and beautiful way.
We hired Elle Benson to help with the strategic buildout, and she and her subcontractor, Sara Baker, traversed the state with me, gathering feedback and sharing our plans. We also created an advisory group to review the plan. This group, which consisted of folks who provided key feedback, was awesome. Though I had a “Kevin Dean” version of the plan to begin with, the feedback we received was very important. Our plan evolved and evolved with each passing meeting, each feedback session, and each presentation. We spent months gathering data and feedback for the plan, and we were finally ready to present it to our board of directors and confirm that we were, indeed, going to be the state association. But that’s for the next chapter.