Have you ever dreamed of leaving your corporate career to build a nonprofit around a mission you deeply care about—but wondered how you would actually fund it, structure it, or pay yourself?

Sharon Elefant reveals why good intentions aren’t enough: a sustainable nonprofit needs business structure, funding strategy, measurable programs, strong relationships, and the right board. She also explains why you shouldn’t rush to leave your corporate job—and why collaboration may be far more powerful than competing for the same funding.

Listen to the end for the mindset shift that can turn a passion project into a truly sustainable mission-driven business.

What you will learn from this episode:

  • Learn how to turn a passion project into a fundable, sustainable nonprofit.
  • Discover why you may need to build consistent funding before leaving your corporate career.
  • Understand how to build a nonprofit with the business structure and mindset needed to scale your impact.

“Good intentions deserve strong infrastructure.”

– Sharon Elefant

Topics Covered:

01:15 – What The Nonprofit Plug actually does: Sharon explains how she supports nonprofits from formation and IRS filings through funding, financial management, leadership, and growth.

03:05 – Turning passion into a nonprofit structure: Learn how to take the mission in your heart and reverse-engineer it into programs, metrics, deliverables, and a sustainable funding model.

04:45 – Getting comfortable asking for money: Sharon explains why donor cultivation is one of the biggest challenges for new nonprofit founders—and why fundraising isn’t begging.

06:15 – Can nonprofit founders pay themselves?: Discover why nonprofit founders can earn a salary and why sustainable compensation is part of building a sustainable mission.

07:50 – Why grant funding is getting more competitive: Sharon explains how economic, political, and donor changes are affecting grants and why nonprofits need a stronger funder-cultivation strategy.

09:35 – Collaboration instead of competition: Find out why nonprofits serving similar populations may be stronger together—and why funders often value collaboration.

11:00 – Navigating government funding: Sharon explains how political changes can reshape government funding while opportunities in areas like housing, welfare, and mental health remain available.

12:15 – When should you leave your corporate job?: Learn why Sharon recommends staying in your job while you build donors, grants, partnerships, programming, and consistent funding.

13:45 – Building a board that works for you: Discover how the right board can help with fundraising, partnerships, strategic thinking, and growth—and why college students can be valuable board members.

15:35 – The nonprofit mindset shift: Sharon explains why founders need to treat nonprofits like businesses and develop business acumen around payroll, insurance, hiring, leadership, and compliance.

16:35 – Building impact and income together: Discover the mindset behind creating a nonprofit that can serve the community while also creating sustainable income for its founder.

Key Takeaways:

“We don’t beg. We just save the world.” – Sharon Elefant

“Collaboration actually will get you a lot further.” – Sharon Elefant

“People treat nonprofits not like a business, and that’s where everyone messes up.” – Sharon Elefant

Ways to Connect with Sharon Elefant:

Ways to Connect with Sarah E. Brown:

 

Full Episode Transcript:

(AI helped us put this together, so if you see any weird grammar or missed words—just know we nailed it during the actual chat.)

Sharon Elefant

People treat nonprofits not like a business, and that’s where everyone messes up.

Sarah E. Brown

Hello everyone. Welcome to the KTS Success Factor Podcast for Women, where we talk about challenges senior female leaders face in being happy and successful at work.

I’m your host, Dr. Sarah E. Brown. 

My guest today is Dr. Sharon Elefant. She is a nationally recognized nonprofit strategist, educator, and  community advocate dedicated to helping mission-driven leaders turn bold ideas into sustainable, fundable organizations. 

As the founder and CEO of The Nonprofit Plug, Dr. Elefant has supported more than 1,000 nonprofit leaders, helped launch and scale over 500 nonprofit organizations, and maintained 100% IRS approval rate.

She’s stewarded over 5 million in nonprofit assets and supported organizations that have collectively secured more than 15 million in funding. 

Welcome, Sharon. 

Sharon Elefant

Thank you. Thank you. That was good. I like that. 

Sarah E. Brown

Well, this is gonna be an interesting conversation. 

So tell me a bit more about what The Nonprofit Plug does first.

Let’s start with that. 

Sharon Elefant

Sure. Sure. So Nonprofit Plug, it’s a [00:02:00] for-profit company. It’s an LLC consulting firm. I like to say like a boutique consulting firm, but on a, on a high scale level, but with a boutique feeling. 

So what we do, everything from birth to death of a nonprofit. 

So we do nonprofit formations if you’re looking to start a nonprofit, we do all the state and federal filings, bookkeeping, accounting, financial management, all the tax filings for nonprofits, grant writing for nonprofits,workshops, leadership development, mindset coaching for entrepreneurs that are in the mission-driven business, and anything a nonprofit could need.

My goal was, because I was once a nonprofit founder, I just wanted one place I could go to to get all of the support I needed that I knew was vetted, that was accurate research, that had metrics, and I… That’s what I wanted this company to be, and that’s kind of what The Nonprofit Plug does including websites, logo development there’s a, there’s an art to website development for nonprofits because they need to be for funders and donors and things like that.

So you name it, we got it for your nonprofit support. 

Sarah E. Brown

That’s pretty cool. 

So if I am the… So my audience is primarily mid-career professional women. So if, if they’ve got an idea for a passion project, so to speak… a mission that, is really on their heart to do something about, and they wanna start a nonprofit to do it, what’s the first thing they should be doing?

Sharon Elefant

Ooh, that’s a good question, and the cool thing is about in this mid-career life, especially for women ages 30 and above, 35 and above, that is my primary clientele, women who have been in the corporate sector, kind of wanna now do their community stuff to be a little bit more fulfilling. 

So first thing I always recommend, have the conversation, what is it that you wanna do for the community?

Okay, you wanna ensure homeless people have access to food. You wanna make sure shelters are empty of animals. You want to have a home for single mothers who lost a job or are getting out of a domestic violence situation. 

Perfect start. Okay, great. 

And we kind of have a conversation around that, and then I help them frame everything that’s in their head about their heart, their passion, and what they wanna do, and we frame that and turn it into a business structure with programming, metrics, deliverables, and from there we’re able to do the entire formation.

So I put people through a process to have a discussion on what is it exactly that you wanna do for the community. I wanna save every dog in the world. Okay, so let’s now put that in the framework of an actual profitable business, and by profitable for non-profits I mean income sustainable. 

Sarah E. Brown

Right. 

Sharon Elefant

And then we do the paperwork that kinda supports that infrastructure.

Sarah E. Brown

Okay. So, in essence, they’ve gotta get the program structure figured out before they start investing other things into…

Sharon Elefant

I wouldn’t even say it has to be that far along. I would say as long as you know that you want to end shelters for dogs, that at least you know that, and then we talk through what do you have to reverse engineer it, what programs do you have to have in place in order to end animals going into shelters, and that’s what we talk about and clarify.

And that one, for example, would be, okay, well, we need to have a funding structure, we need to have donors, a pitch, a messaging, and those are the things that we really clarify and outline in the process. 

Sarah E. Brown

Do you find that figuring out who your donors and funders are is a big challenge for- 

Sharon Elefant

It’s a challenge for folks that are not used to asking for money or don’t know how to pitch it.

So one of our programs, which is probably what makes the Nonprofit Plug so unique, is even when people come to us for grant writing, we force them through donor cultivation training so that we can teach you how to articulate that message, “I wanna save every dog in the world, and here’s why I need you to give me money to do that.”

That is the biggest challenge that most people have, ’cause they’re just uncomfortable. 

And they think it’s begging, and I’m like, “You’re in the nonprofit sector. We, we don’t beg. We just save the world.” 

Sarah E. Brown

All right. So, so yeah, it’s getting your pitch down and it’s getting over the discomfort of asking for money.

Sharon Elefant

Totally. And, and it’s, I like to tell people, “You’re not asking for money for your personal pocket. You’re asking for people collectively as a community to help support you in a mission to help the community be better and thrive together and to be more sustainable.” 

Sarah E. Brown

Okay. Well, so that raises a question. So if I’m starting up a nonprofit to save dogs in my community, for example … can I earn a salary? 

Sharon Elefant

Absolutely. That is my favorite thing to demystify with people in the nonprofit sector. 

So first of all, I can’t even stand calling nonprofits nonprofits, ’cause it’s not non-profitable. 

It’s not a no-money industry. It’s, like, one of the third largest GDPs in employers in the world. 

So per your bylaws, per nonprofit legalities, you absolutely can have a salary. And why would you wanna be saving the world and you can’t even put food on your table for you and your family? 

Sarah E. Brown

Mm-hmm. 

Sharon Elefant

So part of your work should be to be able to get you a salary so that you can fund the mission, fund your work that you do.

And a lot of people wanna go into nonprofits and start them and end up working for it full time and leave corporate America anyways, and you have to do that by getting a salary. 

So we help them with that mindset and structure to set that up. 

Sarah E. Brown

Okay. The Nonprofit Plug will do grant writing for the nonprofit? Okay. 

Sharon Elefant

Yep. 

Sarah E. Brown

And is the grant scene changing? 

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Hi, this is Sarah Brown again, the host of the KTS Success Factor podcast for women. I hope you are enjoying this episode and gaining some tips and inspiration on how you can be happier, more successful and experience less stress at work. 

If you would like to learn more about how you can take control of your career and do it your way, visit sarahebrown.com. There you will be able to download a free chapter from my book, Let Your Personality Be Your Career Guide. It contains information and exercises on how you can identify your unique interests, strengths, and needs, and translate that into career goals that are just right for you. 

Now, back to this informative episode.

Sharon Elefant

Oh my God, yeah. And I wouldn’t necessarily say the grant scene is changing for better or for worse, it’s just changing based on economy, it changes on politics, it changes on private donors and what other foundations and their mission’s changing.

So it’s not necessarily a good or better, but what is happening is it is becoming more competitive. 

So say for example, a foundation has a grant opportunity open, 1,000 nonprofits apply, and they only award to one, that’s a really low, you know, rate and really competitive. 

So what people are having to do is nonprofits are having to get more strategic in their grant writing.

And what my number one recommendation is, just like you would cultivate a relationship with a donor, you should be doing the exact same thing with grant writing. 

And I call it funder cultivation. 

Sarah E. Brown

Okay. I got it. Are you seeing a lot of proliferation of nonprofits competing with each other with the same mission?

Is that an issue? 

I’m seeing that in my community, that’s why I’m asking the question. 

Sharon Elefant: 

Yeah. I, and I don’t like to say it as competition, it’s that people won’t collaborate. Hmm. Collaboration is a really hard thing for people.

Maybe that’s something they should deal with in the for-profit world.

But in nonprofits, collaboration actually will get you a lot further. 

Maybe there’s two nonprofits in your community, and they both have transitional housing and provide housing to get folks off the street, have a transitional spot, and then into permanent housing, and they’re both competing for the same funds.

I have clients that do that, and I have them collaborate together and go after the same funding because one will always have a little more expertise in one area than the other, or one can fill a gap in, and together they can actually complete that whole circle, and funders love collaboration. 

I would try to get your community to understand the importance of collaboration versus competition.

Sarah E. Brown: 

Okay. And what about government funding? 

Is that going up, going down, just changing, staying the same? What’s your sense of that scene right now? 

Sharon Elefant: It’s changing. I wouldn’t say it’s going up or down. It’s changing. 

So every political… whoever’s in charge- 

Sarah E. Brown: 

Mm-hmm … 

Sharon Elefant: 

…has an impact on that, of course.

Good, bad, for worse, whatever it might be, and so that has an impact. 

So it’s gonna change here again on what that scene looks like, but there’s still a lot, and I mean a lot of government funding. It may not be as much as people have heard about before, but it’s still there. There’s still housing funding.

There’s still welfare funding. There’s still funding, a lot of federal funding for mental health and things like that. 

Maybe some of the DEI stuff and how you use language has changed, so you have to get a little bit more strategic in how you approach the federal funding, but that’s typically based on who’s in office.

Sarah E. Brown

Okay … 

Sharon Elefant

Still there, though. It’s definitely still there, it just takes a little bit more work to get in through the loopholes. 

Sarah E. Brown

So if a woman listening to this now is in her corporate job but she dreams about being the head of her own nonprofit, saving the world what’s a timeline she should think about in terms of doing this realistically? 

Sharon Elefant

Sure. 

Sarah E. Brown

And also she ne- she needs to have some kind of a salary. 

Sharon Elefant

That’s literally what I was just going to ask you, is first question would be is do you need an income for this? 

So if you need an… We’ll do two, two answers. 

If you’re someone who wants to start a nonprofit and you do want an income from it, you’re gonna wanna stay in your corporate job for probably at least a good two to three years more while you build this out, you get donors, you get funds, you get grants, you build relationships.

Every dollar that comes into a nonprofit is literally from building a relationship. 

You don’t just start a nonprofit and, and think that it’s a silver platter, and the, and you deserve the funds to hit. 

There’s a lot of entitlement in nonprofit world. People think just ’cause you start a nonprofit you deserve $100,000 grants, and that’s not, definitely not how it works.

So I would say if you’re someone who wants to start a nonprofit and you’re in a corporate job, keep that for a good two, three years until you’ve got consistent funding that has funding to provide your high-quality programming, and get metrics, and build those partnerships, and where you can have a percent of that go towards payroll, such as a salary for themselves or, or for others.

Some people wanna hire, like, a program manager to kind of help build that stuff. 

Sarah E. Brown

So do you get a surrogate to run it for you, uh, while you’re getting it up and running before you can pull the plug in the corporate world? 

Sharon Elefant

It depends. So this is where the board of the nonprofit really comes into play, because those are your pro bono volunteer individuals that should be helping you fundraise, bring in partners, bring in in-kind, and bring in other strategic high-level thinking to the organization while you still have your full-time nine to five.

So those, that’s your team that’s gonna help you so that you can get to the level of where you’ve got paid employees. 

Sarah E. Brown

Mm-hmm. Okay. 

Sharon Elefant

The board is really important. People really put the board to the side. The board is really important. 

Sarah E. Brown

Okay. So how do you go about picking the board? 

Sharon Elefant

Yeah. 

Sarah E. Brown

And how do you get them excited about a fledgling, essentially fledgling idea?

Sharon Elefant

Right. Right. So usually what I tell folks, if you’re starting a nonprofit and you’re putting a board together, you find those board members, either they are colleagues, friends that you already know that have a similar passion for that same mission, or you’re going to networking events, nonprofit conferences.

Some of the best board members, people think I’m crazy for this, are college students. 

Number one, they want the experience for their resume. 

Number two, they’re young, they’re innocent, they’re eager. They still have that, like, that level of energy. They haven’t hit burnout yet. 

So don’t sleep on college students.

And they, their ideas are insanely amazing, creative, and outside the box. That’s where I first start to find those individuals that are pro bono volunteers for the organization. 

If they believe in your mission, they become part of your board, and then they kind of get that level of, “I was on a nonprofit board.

This was my role. I got to do X, Y, and Z,” and it’s a win-win 

Sarah E. Brown

That’s a very interesting idea. It’s a very, very creative one as well. And it’s an all around win, win, win. 

Sharon Elefant

Yeah. Don’t, don’t sleep on college students. And not only that, they’re in classes that require projects, and they could do their project as part of the non-profit organization or their thesis or dissertation or something like that.

Sarah E. Brown

Very interesting idea. 

So if I, again, if I am thinking about hanging up my corporate hat and starting on something I really care about, what did I not ask you that I should have asked you, besides how do I find The Nonprofit Plug? Forget that. 

We’ll put that in the show notes. But besides that, what did I not ask you that I should have?

Sharon Elefant

I think what you should be asking me, and what other women especially should be asking me, is what mindset shift, should women do or need to have to truly make that to scale their impact? 

Especially if you’re an individual that does not come from, like, a business management background. 

You need to be asking questions about payroll, insurance, hiring and leading staff, legal compliance, the actual business acumen of running an organization.

People treat nonprofits not like a business, and that’s where everyone messes up. If you treat a nonprofit and you call it, “This is my mission-driven business,” and you put that for-profit kind of mindset, that savage kind of mindset in there, those are the things that you need to be thinking about, and the best outcome you have is that you’re serving the community plus an income.

Sarah E. Brown

Very interesting. 

Well, Sharon, thank you so much for being with me today. 

Sharon Elefant

Thank you so much.

Sarah E. Brown

Thanks for listening to the KTS Success Factor Podcast for Women. If you like what you are hearing, please go to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave a review. 

And if you would like more information on how we can help women in your organization to thrive, then go to www.sarahebrown.com. You can sign up for our newsletter, read show notes and learn more about our podcast guests, read my blog, browse through the books, or contact us for a chat. 

Goodbye for now.

Sarah E. Brown
Sarah E. Brown