Curious About What Makes Nonprofits Thrive?

Nonprofits don’t just launch. Like little ones, they’re raised.

They grow. They hit awkward stages. They need structure. They need care. They need steady leadership. And over the years, I’ve come to believe that the best way to understand nonprofit growth is through the lens of early childhood development.

RAISING A NONPROFIT in an early childhood world is the foundation of that idea.

In it, I explore what happens when we apply early childhood principles — relationships, developmental stages, responsive systems, regulation, sustainability — to nonprofit leadership. Because organizations, like children, don’t skip stages. And when we ignore development, we feel it.

This book is the starting place. It invites leaders to consider:

• What makes early childhood-focused nonprofits distinct?

• Where do we overlap with the broader nonprofit world?

• What stage is our organization actually in?

• And what does it need right now to grow well?

The companion workbook was created for leaders who want to go deeper, to reflect, apply, and translate the ideas into real decisions and structures.

And there’s more coming.

This is becoming a series, with each book building on the core belief that nonprofits are not machines to be optimized, but living systems to be raised with intention.

Because when we understand development, we lead differently.

And when we lead differently, nonprofits don’t just survive — they thrive.