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This guide is for nonprofit leaders who feel worn out and want to raise more money, involve more people, and find more joy in their work.

The meeting you’ve been dreading

You know the feeling. That donor meeting you’ve been putting off for weeks. The coffee chat that keeps getting rescheduled. The pitch deck you’ve rewritten again and again because it still doesn’t feel right.

You’re a good fundraiser. You care about the mission. You’ve done the research. And still, the thought of walking into that room makes your stomach drop.

The truth is, you’re not bad at fundraising. You’ve just learned a style that wasn’t designed for you. It treats asking for support like a performance and can make you feel out of place in your own work.

On a recent episode of Tellwell the Podcast, I sat down with Tesha McCord Poe, founder of Joy Raising, and she said something I haven’t stopped thinking about.

“I want to raise more money with more people and more joy.”

That’s the main idea. It’s not just a tactic or a strategy. It’s an attitude.

The main lesson is that adopting a joyful, inclusive mindset changes everything. The way you approach fundraising affects your results, your relationships, and your own sense of purpose.

Why fundraising feels heavy in the first place

A lot of fundraising advice is based on scarcity. Hit your targets. Close the gift. Follow up a set number of times. Sort your donor lists. Move major donors through steps like they’re items on an assembly line.

Nobody got into this work because they love conveyor belts.

You started this work because a child got a library card, a family found housing, or someone in your community got a new chance. The work itself brings joy. Asking for support is how you make that joy possible.

But at some point, we started to see the work and the ask as separate things.

Tesha told me she was terrified of fundraising when she started. A week-long training at Dartmouth. A shop she was leading before she fully believed she belonged there. The whole thing felt like learning a foreign language.

What made the difference for her wasn’t a new script. It was making a choice.

The fear, the courage, the risk of rejection, and all the preparation—it all has to be worth it.

Once she’d been part of something that turned into a library, turned into access, turned into a cure, she couldn’t go back. The joy was bigger than the fear.

The main point is that changing how you feel about fundraising isn’t about learning new tricks. It’s about choosing a mindset of joy and real connection.

The moment Tesha excluded herself from the ask

This story from the interview really made me pause.

Tesha was the chief advancement officer. A big ask was coming up. She excused herself from the room. Her logic sounded reasonable at the time. The donors were a certain kind of affluent. She thought they’d want someone who looked like them, who lived like them, doing the asking.

So she stepped aside. She let someone else lead.

The ask happened. And afterward, the donor pulled a colleague aside and said something Tesha has carried ever since.

“Why wasn’t Tesha in that ask? We would’ve had our questions answered, and we probably would’ve given more.”

Read that again.

We probably would’ve given more.

Tesha had counted herself out. She’d done to herself exactly what she was trying to stop other people from doing. And the donor, who she’d assumed wanted distance, actually wanted her.

This is what real inclusive philanthropy looks like. It’s not just a statement in your annual report. It’s recognizing when you’re about to step back from a room where you belong, and deciding to stay.

Bad vs good: the ask you almost missed

Here’s what the difference looks like in real life.

Bad version. You’re a twenty-seven-year-old development coordinator. The donor is a seventy-year-old retired executive with a vacation home in Aspen. You assume you have nothing in common. You push the meeting to your executive director. You sit in the car with your laptop and answer emails while the meeting happens without you. The ED stumbles on a programmatic question you could’ve answered in your sleep. The donor gives, but gives smaller than they might have. Nobody learns anything.

Good version. Same meeting. This time you go. You prepare. You’ve read their giving history. You’ve pulled three stories from the program team that illustrate exactly what this donor has funded before. You sit in the room, and when the programmatic question comes up, you answer it with specifics that the ED couldn’t have. The donor leans forward. They ask a follow-up. You answer that too. You leave with a larger commitment and an invitation to coffee in six weeks.

The difference wasn’t about being charming. It was about being present.

Boundaries are the space that lets you love both

Tesha quoted Brené Brown in Atlas of the Heart, and the line stopped me cold.

“Boundaries are the space between you and me that allows me to love us both.”

That kind of boundary doesn’t push people away. It helps make lasting relationships possible.

For fundraisers, this matters in two directions.

With donors, this means you don’t have to accept every meeting or invitation just because you’re worried about losing the relationship. Saying no won’t end it. In fact, it often makes the relationship stronger.

With yourself, it means you notice when the same conversation with a colleague keeps spiraling in the same negative loop. Tesha’s rule is blunt and useful. You’ve got two good times left to have this conversation with me, and then after that, you’re gonna have it with somebody else.

That’s not being harsh. It’s taking care of your own energy and limits.

If you’re a development director with a small team, your energy is your organization’s most valuable fundraising asset. Guard it as carefully as you would a major donor relationship. If you burn out, next year’s programs might not get funded.

Your superpower, and whether you’re allowed to bring it to work

Tesha asks everyone she coaches the same question. What’s your superpower, and are you allowed to bring it to work with you?

Take a moment to think about that.

Because here’s what I see when I’m working with nonprofit teams. There’s a communications director who writes with genuine tenderness, and she’s been told to write like the last communications director. There’s a development associate who’s the best researcher I’ve ever watched work, and she’s been pushed into donor meetings that drain her. There’s an executive director who’s a natural connector, and she’s stuck in a spreadsheet for forty hours a week.

Everyone has a superpower, but most people aren’t really allowed to use it at work.

If you’re a leader, your job is to discover what each team member does best and adjust their work so they can use those strengths more often. Make one change this week. Not just to be kind, but because it’s the only way to grow for the long term. Take action and make real change.

If you’re not in charge, your job is tougher. You need to identify your superpower, speak up about using it, and have honest talks about the parts of your job that wear you out.

This is the conversation most people avoid until they’re already resigning.

Have that conversation sooner. Don’t wait until you’re ready to quit to talk about what matters. Set up a meeting with your supervisor this month to discuss your role and your strengths. Take control and make your work more meaningful.

What to do when you don’t feel like you belong in the room

Tesha’s approach is the most helpful advice I’ve heard on this topic in ten years of working in this field.

When you walk into a donor meeting, and the imposter voice starts up, ask yourself four questions.

• How did I get to be in this situation? Not in a self-doubting way. In an honest way. What chain of events put me in this chair? Usually, the answer is that you earned it.
• What do I bring to it? Maybe it’s not the bank account. Maybe it’s the education, the relationships, the proximity to the mission, the willingness to work harder than anyone else in the room. Name it.
• What do I want from it? Clarity here is kindness to the donor. If you want a specific gift amount, know the number. If you want a second meeting, know what that meeting would unlock. If you want a referral to their peer group, say that.
• What can I give them from it? This is the one most fundraisers skip. A well-run donor meeting gives the donor something. Information they didn’t have. A story they’ll tell their spouse over dinner. A sense of being truly seen. If you walk in with something to give, the ask stops feeling like extraction and starts feeling like an exchange.

Ask yourself these four questions before every meeting for the next month. Write down what changes. Share your progress with someone you trust. Start now and watch your confidence grow.

The practice of choosing joy when the world is heavy

There’s one last thing from this conversation that really moved me.

Tesha has lost her father and her husband within six months of each other. She has two kids. She runs a company called Joy Raising.

Here’s what she said.

“If you have the capacity for joy right now, don’t you dare keep it to yourself. Because there are people who do not have that, and they need you.”

If you’re a nonprofit leader, you already know how tough things feel right now. There are funding cuts, donor fatigue, staff burnout, and political instability that your community feels every day.

You are also, somehow, one of the few people in your community with the capacity to show up, raise money, and make something good happen.

Remember, your ability to find joy and keep showing up is important, serious work. It drives everything you do and keeps your impact going.

Joy, kindness, and showing up are like muscles. You strengthen them by using them, especially on the days when it’s hardest.

Your 30-day joyful fundraising action plan

Choose a Monday to start. Stick to each step on schedule. Use your calendar to stay on track. Ask a friend to join you, and celebrate your progress after 30 days. Taking the first step builds momentum.

Week one. 20 minutes. Write down your superpower. Write down three parts of your current role where you get to use it, and three where you don’t. Share the list with your manager or a trusted peer. Ask them one question. What’s one thing I could shift this quarter to use my superpower more?

Week two. 45 minutes. Identify three donor meetings or asks in the next 60 days where you’ve been quietly planning to excuse yourself. For each one, write down the real reason. Not the polite reason. The real reason. Then decide which one you’re going to show up for instead.

Week three. 60 minutes. Pick one upcoming donor meeting. Answer the four questions. How did I get here? What do I bring? What do I want? What can I give? Write your answers down. Walk into the meeting with them. Take ten minutes after to write what actually happened.

Week four. 30 minutes. Audit one recurring conversation or relationship that’s been draining you. Decide whether you’re going to have it two more times with patience or set the boundary now. Tell the person. Kindly. Clearly. Without apology.

No one is judging you on this. The real measure is whether you feel more like yourself by the end of the month.

What this means for your organization

If you’re an executive director reading this, here’s the institutional version.

Your fundraising strategy is only as strong as the people carrying it out. If your team walks into donor meetings feeling like they don’t belong, you’re likely missing out on support. When team members can’t use their strengths fully, their growth is limited.

Joyful fundraising isn’t just a nice-to-have skill. It’s a real strategy for raising more money.

Build the culture that makes it possible. Coach your people to answer the four questions before meetings. Talk openly about boundaries in your staff meetings. Name superpowers out loud in performance reviews. Write down the stories of the asks that almost didn’t happen and the ones that did.

You’ll raise more money and keep your team longer. The results speak for themselves.

Resource Hub

Joy Raising. Tesha’s consulting practice. Coaching, keynotes, and frameworks for mission-driven leaders. joy-raising.com

Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown. Tesha quoted it in the episode. The chapter on boundaries alone is worth the price of the book.

The dash poem. The inspiration behind Joy Raising’s URL. A reminder that what matters is what you do with the years between the two dates on your tombstone.

Tesha McCord Poe on LinkedIn. For ongoing wisdom on inclusive philanthropy and donor engagement. Search her name, connect, and tell her Max sent you.

Tellwell the Podcast. More conversations like this one with nonprofit leaders, fundraisers, and storytellers building trust, belonging, and impact. wetellwell.com