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What you’ll get: A practical look at how one nonprofit leader stopped trying to fit a mold, leaned into the power of story, and built a national organization that reaches millions of families every year.

The Executive Director Who Refused to Pretend

Ashley Ham did not come into nonprofit leadership through a traditional door.

She did not have a background in operations. She did not have a passion for bylaws. She had not spent years studying fundraising strategy or organizational development. What she had was a 28-week-premature son, 87 days in the NICU, and a desperate need for community that she could not find anywhere.

That need became Dear NICU Mama. And the clarity she found about what makes Dear NICU Mama special, namely story, became one of the most honest and useful conversations we have had on Tellwell: The Podcast.

If you lead a nonprofit and you have ever felt like you were supposed to show up differently than you actually are, this one is for you.

What Happens When You Stop Trying to Be Someone Else

Ashley was 32 years old when she sat across from us and said something most executive directors are too scared to admit out loud.

“I struggled to find other executive directors that I feel like I have similar skills to.”

She did not come into this work because she loved spreadsheets or grant cycles or strategic planning frameworks. She came into it because she had a story that needed telling, and she had watched how the lack of that story had hurt her and people like her. She was a creative. A community builder. A photographer. A storyteller.

For a while, she tried to look like what she thought an executive director was supposed to look like. It did not work. It felt hollow. And then her board gave her permission she had not fully given herself.

They told her: Ashley shows up like Ashley. We want that. Do not try to fit a mold.

That single shift unlocked everything. Because when Ashley stopped trying to perform a version of leadership that did not fit her, she could finally see what Dear NICU Mama actually was. Not a traditional support organization. Not a clinical resource. A storytelling platform. One built for NICU moms, by someone who had been one.

That is not a small distinction. That is the entire strategy.

The lesson for nonprofit leaders is not “be yourself” in some vague inspirational sense. It is more specific than that. When you force yourself into a leadership mold that does not fit your actual strengths, you end up diluting what makes your organization irreplaceable. You start trying to serve everyone. You stop being exceptional at anything.

Ashley did the opposite. She got honest about what she was genuinely good at and built the whole organization around it.

Do One Thing and Do It Really, Really Well

There is a temptation in the nonprofit world to be everything to everyone. You see it constantly. Organizations that started with a clear mission slowly accumulate programs, partnerships, and initiatives until nobody, including the staff, can clearly articulate what they actually do.

Ashley has a different philosophy, and she stated it plainly.

“Do one thing and do it really, really well. If you can stem out from that versus trying to take all these disparate things and make them work together, it’s so much more powerful.”

For Dear NICU Mama, that one thing is story.

Story is how they recruit moms into the community. Story is how they deliver peer support. Story is how they raise awareness. Story is the podcast. Story is the letter writing program. Story is what gets on a mom’s sweatshirt and travels with her into surgery.

Everything connects back to the same root.

And here is what that clarity unlocks that most nonprofit leaders underestimate: it makes partnership easier, not harder. When your mission is specific and clear, you are not competing with other organizations in your space. You are complementing them.

Ashley described it this way. When someone else is great at focus groups or a specific piece of the NICU support puzzle, she can point families to them without hesitation. Because Dear NICU Mama is not trying to do that. Dear NICU Mama tells stories.

That confidence, the ability to say “that is not us, but here is who does that well,” is only possible when you have done the hard work of getting honest about your lane.

Try this: Write down the one thing your organization does better than anyone else in your space. Not three things. One. If you cannot write it in a single sentence, that is useful information.

Why Ashley Chose a Podcast (and What Nonprofit Leaders Can Learn from It)

When we asked Ashley why she chose audio as a primary medium for Dear NICU Mama, her answer was not about downloads or reach or algorithms.

It was about control.

“When you’re in the NICU, the last thing you feel like you have capacity for is to leave baby’s bedside. And when you do leave, it rips your heart out.”

A traditional support group requires a mom to show up at a specific time, in a specific place, and be subject to whatever the group dynamic happens to be that day. She cannot press pause if something triggers her. She cannot rewind if she missed something. She cannot opt out in the middle.

A podcast can do all of those things.

For a population of parents who feel almost entirely out of control, the ability to choose when and how they engage, to press pause, to skip ahead, to listen at 2am during a pumping session, is not a small thing. It is the whole thing.

That insight also transfers to nonprofit leaders whose audiences have nothing to do with the NICU.

Ask yourself: where is your community when they need you most? What are they actually doing? What does their capacity look like in that moment? If the answer is that they are overwhelmed, distracted, physically constrained, or emotionally depleted, then a format that asks them to show up on your schedule is working against you.

Ashley also made an observation about what podcasting does for her as a leader that we want to sit with for a second.

“It makes me as an executive director a little bit less intimidating. Any time you get to connect with your executive director in a way that isn’t just standing at the gala giving a presentation, it makes me more human.”

That is a strategic insight dressed up in simple language. The gala speech creates distance. The podcast closes it. And for nonprofits that depend on community, trust, and long-term relationships, distance is the enemy.

When You Can See Yourself in Someone Else’s Story, Healing Begins

This is the part of the conversation that stopped us cold.

We asked Ashley what it actually looks like to help a NICU mom feel seen. She came back to story, the way she always does.

“When you can see yourself reflected in someone else’s story, or vice versa, that’s where healing begins. I wasn’t crazy, because I felt that way too. It eradicates shame. Shame has no place when we have the safety to share our stories. Connection takes that place.”

She is describing something that goes far beyond peer support. She is describing the fundamental mechanism by which story does its most important work.

Shame lives in isolation. It tells you that what you are going through is unique to you, that nobody else would understand, that you are broken or weak or failing. Story, the honest telling of a real experience, is the most direct antidote to that. Because when someone hears their own experience in another person’s words, the shame dissolves. It has nowhere to go.

This is true in the NICU. It is also true in the donor who has never told anyone about the loss that is driving their giving. It is true in the volunteer who does not know how to explain why this cause matters to her. It is true in the board member who is afraid to admit what she does not know.

Nonprofit leaders who understand this use story differently. They do not tell stories to impress people. They tell stories to give people permission to see themselves. That is a different goal, and it produces different results.

The letter writing program at Dear NICU Mama is a perfect example. Moms write letters to other NICU moms, but Ashley is clear about what is really happening.

“You’re really writing it to yourself. It involves looking back on your own journey and thinking, what did I need to hear in that moment?”

The healing is not just for the reader. It is for the writer. Story, shared honestly and with intention, works in both directions.

The Coffee Shop Story

We are going to tell you this one the way Ashley told it to us, because it deserves that.

Ashley was going through a hard season with the organization. Her co-founder, a close friend and the person she had built everything with, had stepped back. Ashley was questioning whether Dear NICU Mama was still doing what it was supposed to do. On her way into a coffee shop where she planned to work, she told her mom on the phone: “Maybe dear NICU Mama isn’t helping people anymore. Maybe I just need to throw in the towel.”

She sat down. Started working. And then she heard a sound she recognized immediately.

An incubator alarm.

In a coffee shop.

She stood up, looked around the pillar beside her, and saw a stroller with a tube coming out of it. She walked over, introduced herself, and learned the woman sitting there had just come home from a 225-day NICU stay. Twins born at 25 weeks. Her son had a trach.

And then the woman said: “Wait, are you Ashley with Dear NICU Mama?”

She was. And what the woman said next is what nonprofit leaders need to hear when the grind gets heavy.

“Dear NICU Mama literally saved my life. I wore my ‘you are braver than you feel’ sweatshirt any day I just could not get through. When my son had his heart surgery, I had my sweatshirt on.”

Ashley was crying. The mom was crying. The home health nurse was crying.

She had walked into that coffee shop wondering if any of it mattered. She walked out knowing it did.

We are not going to wrap this up with a tidy lesson. Some moments do not need that. What we will say is this: if you lead a nonprofit and you are in a hard season, keep showing up. The confirmation you need might be sitting right around the corner, or in this case, right around the pillar.

A Note on Sustainable Growth

Ashley is a dreamer. She said so herself, and anyone who hears her talk for five minutes believes it immediately. Dear NICU Mama could be as big as she wants it to be. The reach is already national. The community is already millions strong.

And yet she keeps coming back to one word: sustainability.

“I don’t want to commit and then overcommit and not be able to fulfill what we’re good at and what we bring to the table.”

This is a harder thing to hold onto than it sounds. Growth feels like progress. More programs, more staff, more reach. The pressure to scale is real, especially when the work is as clearly needed as NICU family support.

But Ashley is asking a more important question than “how big can we get?” She is asking “how do we get bigger without becoming worse?”

The answer she is working toward involves clear strategic planning, strong hospital relationships, and a willingness to be honest about what Dear NICU Mama is and is not. It involves celebrating what other organizations do well instead of trying to replicate it. And it involves trusting that doing one thing exceptionally, story, is a more durable foundation than doing many things adequately.

That is a model worth studying.

Your Action Plan

These are not abstract ideas. Here is what you can do this week.

In the next 20 minutes: Write one sentence that describes the single thing your organization does better than anyone else in your space. Share it with one board member and ask if they agree.

In the next hour: Listen to one episode of the Dear NICU Mama podcast. Pay attention to how Ashley creates intimacy and trust through audio. Note one thing you could apply to how your organization tells its stories.

In the next week: Identify one story from your community that you have not told yet. Not a statistic. Not an outcome metric. A specific person, a specific moment, a specific before and after. Draft it in first person from their perspective.

In the next month: Audit your programs and communications against the one-thing test. For everything you do, ask: does this connect back to the core thing we do exceptionally? If not, it deserves a hard conversation.

Resource Hub

Dear NICU Mama: The national nonprofit built on peer support, community, and story for NICU families. dearnicumama.com

Right On Time (Children’s Book): Ashley’s new book, written as a love letter to her son and a reminder to all NICU families that growth is not linear and every baby’s story is unfolding exactly as it should. Available for pre-order now. dearnicumama.com/right-on-time-book

Dear NICU Mama Podcast: The number one NICU podcast in the world. Search “Dear NICU Mama” on any podcast platform.

Tellwell Resources: Tools, guides, and resources for nonprofit communicators and leaders. wetellwell.com/resources

Next Up on the Blog

If this conversation resonated, our next post digs into how nonprofit leaders can build a content strategy around a single core message without burning out their team or diluting their brand. Subscribe so you do not miss it.

Ashley Ham is the Executive Director and co-founder of Dear NICU Mama. You can find her and the organization at dearnicumama.com.

This episode of Tellwell: The Podcast is available on YouTube and wherever you listen to podcasts.