When you’re a global humanitarian organization serving people from Ecuador to Tanzania, the support of your board and volunteers is crucial. Without them, your mission can’t continue.
In this episode, Bret Heinrich, president and CEO of Wings of Hope, shares how they’ve been able to get their board deeply and actively involved and why paying attention to the little things really goes a long way. You’ll also hear how Wings of Hope is leveraging technology to reach parts of the world too dangerous to enter.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Why being a board member means really engaging in the life of the organization
- How engaging with people incentivizes them to give their time and resources
- Why you should know the resources that are available to you and use them
Bonus Episode Transcript
Bret Heinrich:
The very first piece of advice I would say to fundraisers is that it’s really not guesswork. Educate yourself. Understand what the AFP code of ethics says. Understand what the Donor Bill of Rights says, and understand what other resources are available to you.
Kimberly O’Donnell:
Sometimes in fundraising, you have to step outside of your comfort zone, dive in, and learn something new. I’m Kimberly O’Donnell and this is Accidental Fundraiser, the show from Network for Good and Bonterra that shares radically authentic stories from the trenches.
We’re told that angels have wings, but what those wings look like really depends on what kind of angel you’re talking about. For Wings of Hope, it’s the wings of an airplane. A global humanitarian organization, they’re dedicated to saving and changing lives through the power of aviation.
So what does that mean? Well, they deploy planes to provide healthcare supplies and food to the world’s most remote regions. Whether that’s traveling to the rainforest of Ecuador, the plains of Tanzania, or landing on a river in Papua New Guinea. Their reach is vast, which as you would imagine, requires a lot of incredible volunteers and support from their board. In this episode, the president and CEO of Wings of Hope, Bret Heinrich shares how they’ve been able to get their board deeply and actively involved and why paying attention to those little things really goes a long way.
Bret, welcome to Accidental fundraiser. I am so excited to have you here today to talk with us about your extensive experience in the nonprofit sector and how you started out as an accidental fundraiser just like us, and just kind of hear some of the great advice that you have for newcomers and those who are wanting to up their game in the world of running a nonprofit and being a rockstar fundraiser.
Bret Heinrich:
Kimberly, thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Kimberly O’Donnell:
So Bret, you are with the organization Wings of Hope. Can you tell us a little bit about this incredible organization?
Bret Heinrich:
We’re a 60 year old organization, and in that time we’ve worked in about 50 countries and for our work on the global scale, we’ve been humbly nominated twice for the Nobel Peace price. We also do quite a bit of work here in the United States, transporting people to access care not available in their communities. So one example I like to use, if there’s a child with a severe orthopedic issue like clubfoot, that child will need to go through a series of medical interventions in order to brace and strengthen and straighten those little legs over time. And if the pediatrician doesn’t have access in that child’s community to an orthopedic surgeon, well then they may have to travel many, many miles. And that’s where we come in.
We can fly a child from rural Kansas, for example, to Shriner’s Hospital in St. Louis where they can access that care, and we do it at absolutely no cost to ensure that that burden is removed from the family. And once we fly that child and mom or dad becomes a part of the Wings of Hope family, we’ll fly them as many times as it takes until the child is completely done with the surgeries.
In our hangar here in St. Louis, Missouri, we also are very committed to reaching and building the pipeline of humanitarian and aviation professionals. Long into the future through a partnership with Boeing, we offer a program called Soar in to STEM, where we place high school students directly in contact with airplanes. They file a flight plan in the air traffic control tower, they take off, and land in an airplane. And it’s all in part to give our field of aviation a boost. We know that we’re facing a actually a crisis. 2 million jobs are opening in the next several years across all areas of aviation. And so by, in our own small way, encouraging young people to consider aviation as a career, we feel like that’s a way we can contribute to the future of our field.
Kimberly O’Donnell:
Bret, that’s fantastic. I mean, one, the mission of your organization is incredible, but two, looking at the need for pilots and others in the aviation industry over time and recognizing, “Hey, for us to stay sustainable and this industry to be sustainable, we need to step in and do something as well.” And creating that STEM program is really remarkable. Now, I don’t know if that occurred while you were executive director, but how did the organization pivot in some ways from its humanitarian work to looking at bolstering education and STEM for youth?
Bret Heinrich:
I’ve been the CEO of Wings of Hope for about five years, and the program is about four years old now. So we recognized just that few years ago that there certainly would be a need. And I often say that Wings of Hope is the nicest two-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee you’ve never heard of. And so we are committed to expanding the people that we reach, certainly in the United States while we continue to expand our work abroad. And what a great way to contribute to the aviation pipeline while also building awareness of Wings of Hope. All of a sudden there are a whole bunch more young people and their moms and dads and families that now have an understanding and appreciation for what we do. And not only is the aviation industry facing a shortage, but we are built on the strength of our volunteers and we’re consistently looking for new volunteers to come in and help Wings of Hope further its mission.
Kimberly O’Donnell:
What I love about this is that you’re also able to engage corporate partners in the aviation industry, and really it’s just fantastic brand awareness effort as well as just really a terrific program that will help at many levels. I’m sure that you needed quite a bit of board support for this, and what I find so impressive about you and Wings of Hope is that your organization is very innovative, so that’s an innovative expansion. You also have recently begun using drone technology, which was something new as well. Share with us a little bit about that and also how you work with your board to innovate in very thoughtful ways, forward thinking ways.
Bret Heinrich:
Our board really is very engaged with our mission and because we work very hard to create a strategic plan together with the board and with the staff and volunteers, it’s really a shared vision that we have. And our board fully is supportive of understanding that the technology that was brand new and cutting edge in 1963 when Wings of Hope started, is not cutting edge today. We are committed to reaching people with the latest means to save and change lives. And so Kimberly, for example, you mentioned our drone effort in Ecuador. So our partner in Ecuador is a terrific flight based operation called Alas de Socorro. And Alas de Socorro flies into about 150 airstrips throughout the Amazon rainforest out of Shell, Ecuador. And what we learned during the early months of COVID, is that to take in potentially the virus into the rainforest could be devastating. We could spread it in an uncontrolled way with just so many indigenous people.
And so we were really locked down from flying into the rainforest. And so we had conversations with Alas de Socorro and said, “What can we do when we can’t physically send our planes into the rainforest?” And we thought long and hard about that and decided, “You know what? We can have a presence even if we’re not there, and we can do that with drone technology.”
So we are in the middle of preparing for a launch of the very first drone out of Shell, Ecuador in partnership with Shell Hospital, a small 20 bed hospital that does it. Just a great job caring for people in order to deliver medicine, and particularly antivenom when we can’t fly our planes into the rainforest.
I use COVID as an example, but what we’ve discovered is that the weather can be a real barrier to flying into the rainforest. [inaudible 00:09:23] often says it’s not a matter of if it’s going to rain today, but when will it rain today? And so we’re very in tune with thinking through, “Well, my goodness, wouldn’t it be wonderful to send antivenom for snake bites in a drone on demand?” And just in the region that we serve with Alas de Socorro there are 80 to 100 venomous snake bites each year, and many of those can be fatal if they go untreated. And so by being able to use new technology to respond to a very real human need, we’re very excited about the prospect and look forward to the very first launch sometime within the next six months.
Kimberly O’Donnell:
Congratulations on that. It’s going to help many lives and also just further technology in your field. Your board is very supportive. Being innovative is very important. It sounds like your organization is also nimble. You can adjust as needed. What advice would you give some of our accidental fundraisers who may not have as supportive a board or may not know how to pivot as Wings of Hope and your board have? What would you say to them?
Bret Heinrich:
My advice would be engage your board fully and do that in a way so each time a new board member encounters the organization, that it’s a real dialogue before a decision is made to bring that board member on and that they fully understand that being a board member means being all in. And they understand by going through a list of very clearly defined expectations, that being a board member really means engaging in the life of the organization and doing that based on what that individual brings In terms of resources.
I’ll use a couple of great examples of our current board. We were so delighted to bring on a highly placed executive from Cisco, the technology company, and she is helping us think differently about using telehealth in remote parts of the world, like the rainforest, where we can connect local healthcare workers in the rainforest with health professionals from around the world. So it takes some of the guesswork out of “What does this person who’s injured need? What is the diagnosis that we can best make using input from literally experts around the world?”
Another great corporate partner on our board is Embraer, and Embraer is, we sat down and said, well, “What can we do to reach more people here in the US?” And so they’ve actually said, “Let us help you fly people. We will use our aircraft to extend your range to fly more people around the world.” So I think if listening carefully to the skills, the interests of your board, understanding how each and every one of them touch the mission personally, what their passions are, and then engaging them in a way that they feel really excited to be involved with.
Kimberly O’Donnell:
Great advice. And adding on to that, as organizations seek to diversify their boards in many different ways, what advice would you give them?
Bret Heinrich:
I would suggest all organizations look carefully across what I call a board matrix of needs and start with your existing board members. What skills and expertise do they already represent? And then what is missing? Certainly some of the key functional areas like finance, human resources, some of those skill areas become very specific, and that’s true of every organization.
In our case, we recognized we needed not just an attorney, but someone with aviation law in their background. And so understanding where the organization is going, what the polls are in terms of skills and expertise on your current board of directors, and then finding and doing your homework and plugging in the very best people to help you meet those needs. Oftentimes we find that if we bring a board member to Wings of Hope and provide them a tour of our headquarters, something will surface. Either they have aviation in their background or they have a loved one who needed services like the services Wings of Hope provides. So certainly the functional skills and professional growth that the member can offer, but then also how do they connect to the mission personally?
Kimberly O’Donnell:
I love it. And the one thing that I would add is that an organization can take their time. It’s not like you’re trying to plug a hole right away, right? You are trying to be intentional about the representation on your board and having a board that is able to think about the future, while in some ways retaining the rich history of the past, you’re with an organization that is 60 years young, so being able to balance that sometimes takes a little bit of time. That time will be worth it if you allow it to happen.
Bret Heinrich:
So true, Kimberly. And our board is really one of a three-legged stool. The board provides terrific leadership. Our staff is fantastic, but counting myself, we have 19 paid staff members and not all of those are full-time. The third leg of the stool that really is a story of Wings of Hope, and that’s more than 300 terrific volunteers who contribute at very high levels.
All of our pilots or volunteers, our purchasing department is entirely volunteer. Our CFO is supported entirely by volunteers. It’s so special to come to work every day surrounded by a group of people who want to give their time to save and change lives.
Kimberly O’Donnell:
That volunteer network is critical to so many organizations and really the growth and the being able to sustain it. As you look at relationships with your volunteers, what are some of the things that you do to make it feel personal, help to garner support, both from the volunteering but then ultimately from also giving in other ways?
Bret Heinrich:
The more you engage with an organization, the more you’re going to give of your resources, whether that’s time or financial support. And that’s true of our volunteers. I used the phrase all in a while ago, and that’s so true of them. And I think part of the excitement about engaging with Wings of Hope, even though the mission is so critical, in that regard, we often say every time you turn a wrench in the hangar, you are helping save a life in Africa. And it may be a person you’ll never meet, but our volunteers understand that and they’re good with that. But beyond that, it’s showing a measure of love and respect that ideas can come from anywhere to move the organization forward.
One of our strategic goals this year is revenue diversification. And when I shared that in one of our volunteer meetings, I had volunteers knocking on my door the rest of the week saying, “Hey, have you ever thought of this?” And we listen carefully and take those ideas and apply them.
Our volunteers, as I mentioned, have a high level of ownership in the organization as well. We believe that there are skills that can be contributed and very important ways beyond traditional volunteer roles of stuffing envelopes or whatever the case may be. We want our volunteers to know that we want to use their wealth of knowledge and experience, particularly when it comes to our intergenerational opportunities with the STEM program, the passing down of information and experience to young people who represent the next generation is just priceless.
So keeping your volunteers engaged, keeping them updated. We have town hall meetings and we say, you know what? There’s no question off the table. If you want to ask us about finance, ask away if you want to ask about where things are going, ask away. And that’s really important because it increases the level of ownership and trust between the staff, the volunteers, and the board.
Kimberly O’Donnell:
I want to change direction for a minute and talk a little bit about ethics. You have been involved in AFP, which is the Association of Fundraising Professionals, and you recently were quoted in an article in Advancing Philanthropy on ethics. So for our accidental fundraisers, what advice would you give them as they just start out, about navigating sometimes the very tricky world of ethics and fundraising?
Bret Heinrich:
The very first piece of advice I would say to fundraisers is that it’s really not guesswork. Educate yourself. Understand what the AFP code of ethics says. Understand what the Donor Bill of Rights says, and understand what other resources are available to you. If, for example, in the Association of Fundraising professionals within the membership, there’s a built-in mechanism at the AFP global headquarters to consult with. So educate yourself. Don’t feel like you are going it alone. Make sure that you engage others if it’s a question in your organization about accepting a donation if it’s appropriate to, and classic example is a cancer organization accepting a donation from big tobacco company. That’s a very sort of simple example, but that’s the kind of decision that the CEO or the development director doesn’t and shouldn’t make in a vacuum, if your board is engaged. That’s a question for the board, and it’s a question that you can apply a series of filters against. What would it look like to see the decision I make in the newspaper tomorrow?
One of the classes I teach for a master’s level program in St. Louis is an entry level program into the nonprofit sector. And we always talk about you could save $3 if your child is [inaudible 00:20:13] and the cutoff for saving that $3 is age 12. All you need to do is just fudge it. Say that your child is 12 and you could save $3. But then we say, “Well, then what you’ve just did is valued the price of your integrity at $3, you sold your integrity for $3.” And so sometimes making ethical decisions can be scary. You don’t know what the repercussions might be, but if you stick to your guns, if you educate yourself on what the best practices are with the code of ethics, with the Donor Bill of Rights, if you call on others that you trust in the organization or through great resources like AFP, then you are in a great position.
Kimberly O’Donnell:
Are there any other organizations that you would recommend to someone starting out for resources and just additive information?
Bret Heinrich:
When I started out, there really wasn’t the academic path to start in a intentionally into the nonprofit sector fundraising. And I was asked to start a development program for an organization I was working with. And of course I said, “Sure, I’ll do it.” And I had no idea really at all what I was doing. So the Association of Fundraising Professionals became my lifeline, and I quickly learned best practice from my colleagues in AFP, and the networking opportunities were great.
There’s so many other organizations, Kimberly, to your point, that also do terrific work out there and particularly by sector. So if you are focused in healthcare, the Association of Healthcare Professionals is an organization that fundraisers should be familiar with. Case Western for academic fundraising is a great resource if you’re specialized in a particular aspect of fundraising. The National Planned Giving Council is a great resource for gift planners across the sector. Find your niche, get involved and educate yourself and really become a student of the sector. And I have found that attending conferences and sharing ideas creates an rich opportunity for lifelong learning in our profession.
Kimberly O’Donnell:
And sometimes an accidental fundraiser, nonprofit leader might think, “Oh, I can’t get away to do that conference,” or “I’m going to be spending what I consider to be a lot of money to go to that conference.” What I would say to them is, it’s good to do it because you will begin to broaden your relationships within this sector. And that can be just transformational as you are considering your program expansion or just learning from those who have been in your similar situations, and you also just can have some great content.
There’s also wonderful webinars and additional content online. I love Board Stores. I love the Foundation Center for Grant Information. There’s lots of different organizations out there, listservs, things like that. And it can be a little daunting to step in and start to find those different resources and connections. But you got to do it at some point, right? So why not do it today? And why not also allow yourself and your organization the time to become educated, right? That’s where you’re thinking proactively versus reactively and leading an organization.
Bret Heinrich:
And there are some great subgroups within these professional associations, affinity groups where you can do a deep dive into if you represent or fundraise for a religious organization. There are religious affinity groups, there are health affinity groups, there are groups dealing with advocacy issues. As you pointed out, Kimberly, there’s something out there for everyone. And once you get over that initial hump of figuring out, “Oh my goodness, how do I navigate this rich pool of resources?” Just dig in and you’ll find your way.
Kimberly O’Donnell:
So let’s talk a little bit about your experience as a fundraiser. Do you have a story or something that happened during your history as a fundraiser that really stuck with you? You learned greatly from it, and our listeners can also benefit from it.
Bret Heinrich:
It’s a little silly, but I’ll share a story that stuck with me early in my career. I had just stepped into a fundraising role and our executive director asked me to pull together a group of volunteers to gather their feedback on a particular project that we were about ready to undertake. So I thought I’d done everything right. I had the room set just so I had all my printouts ready to go. And at the last minute I realized I didn’t have refreshments. I quickly ran to the store and bought some cookies and had the cookies on the table as people arrived. And when my boss walked in and saw the room, she pulled me outside and I thought, “Oh, she’s pulling me outside to congratulate me on what a great job I’ve done.” And instead she said, “What are you thinking?” And I couldn’t figure out what she meant. And she said, “These are our volunteers, and you have store purchased cookies on the table. We need to treat our volunteers better than that. We need to provide at least high quality bakery cookies.”
Now cookies is a silly and simple example, but it speaks to a much broader area. And that is what I said a little bit earlier, demonstrating that you really value and understand your volunteers and appreciate the gift of the time they’re giving you. Short answer is never underestimate the power of a cookie, but more importantly, make sure that you are in tune with the people and not just relying on, “Did I check off the list for having this meeting ready, but have I understood and thought through the relationship I have with these people?”
Kimberly O’Donnell:
So the atmosphere is very important. Bakery versus store bought versus homemade. And some folks now, particularly younger generations, might be off put by the fact that there are bakery cookies, and that’s how the organization’s dollars are being used. So it is important to understand the motivations of supporters in one way or another and what might resonate with them. In some cases you got to test and learn through that, and certainly you did.
And I love your silly example because it’s a practical example that we all go through as we move to different organizations. And so what worked at one organization may truly not work at another. Has this happened with you and share a little bit more about your background and how you’ve risen in your career and your mission towards helping others and being a catalyst for change?
Bret Heinrich:
So when I was wrapping up my undergraduate school, I had set my mind on being a teacher and an actor. And on a whim, a friend convinced me to apply for a fellowship to go teach in Japan. And so we said, “All right, let’s do this together. This sounds really fun.” And when I received my letter notifying me that I had received the fellowship, I was so excited. I ran to find my friend and said, “Hey, we’re going to Japan.” And he said, “No, I’m not. I decided not to, and I just never told you.”
So here I was on my way to Japan by myself as a 20, 21 year old to teach in Japan and had a wonderful experience. Came back and resumed my march toward teaching and acting, moving to Chicago with my wife, and finishing up graduate school. And after all that, few years later, I got a call from the university president where I taught, and he said, “We’re starting a nonprofit organization. Would you come interview?” And I did. And so it was an example of me truly stumbling into the sector based on a assignment in Japan that eventually led me into international nonprofit work. And that was really, as an education person, I didn’t enter into fundraising. And it wasn’t until my second job that I was asked to start the development program for the organization and really relied on my colleagues through AFP and other organizations to help me build that confidence necessary.
Kimberly O’Donnell:
So you have transitioned a few times through your career. When did you know that it was time for that change?
Bret Heinrich:
Took me a while, Kimberly. One very formative organization I was with, I started the development program and remained there for 18 years. And that’s a little bit on the far end of the curve when we know oftentimes development professionals are in a position for 18 months. So I heard 18 and assumed it meant years rather than months, but it was a key piece of my career because I was able to have my hand in something from the very beginning. It was a much younger organization at the time with no development program. And to be able to help shape and grow that organization was key. But as you said, there comes a time when you feel a call to something new or something bigger than your present role.
Now what I’m afraid is happening in our sector, there’s a sense that we are reaching a supply and demand issue with fundraising, that there are more openings for fundraisers than there are qualified fundraisers. We’re finding people rising more quickly than they should because they can. There are more positions open where they can jump around and move from position to position.
So my advice to fundraisers is really think thoughtfully about the mission you want to serve. Where does your heart and your mind lead you to? I always think of two questions to ask. Number one, what is it that breaks your heart? If you could address any issue in the world, what would that be? And then number two, what is it that makes you come alive? What activity do you do really well or do you really find a lot of love in?
I was a writer. I really enjoyed writing. And so a good part of my career in fundraising was spent writing corporate and private foundation requests and then following those requests up. And I did that with a mission that did break my heart. My parents both died earlier in their lives than they should and never had the access to enjoy their senior years like they should have. And so I spent a lot of time working in the field of aging to provide older adults an opportunity to really experience that third age of life and using my skills of writing to raise funds for an organization that helped people age successfully was a sweet spot for me. And so it was very easy for me to stay there 18 years.
Kimberly O’Donnell:
So what breaks your heart, and then what gives you motivation and passion? That’s fantastic advice. As we look at the world of fundraising, the state of fundraising today, and we now have programs and nonprofit management, we have a lot of individuals coming into the sector with some fantastic education and understanding of how the nonprofit sector and how fundraising works. While we do have a massive shortage in fundraisers, do you feel like that is going to help propel organizations? What do you think will come from having educated fundraisers as opposed to accidental fundraisers and where the field and the sector of fundraising are going?
Bret Heinrich:
The first time I stand in front of a new class of students seeking a master’s in nonprofit management, I talk about this very thing and I talk about what are you stepping into? You’re stepping into, here in the United States, a sector of about 1.6 million nonprofit organizations. And every year we know they’re anywhere between 30 and 70,000 new organizations obtaining their 501(c)3 certificate. And we know that the baby boomers are continuing to retire at a very rapid clip. So taking the time, investing in yourself to get a, and choose to get a degree in this field and place yourself in a more competitive and educated place is absolutely the right thing to do. And I believe that is a sign of great hope for our sector.
It’s going to raise the level for all of us when we have more and more people choosing to enter the sector intentionally unlike me, that stumbled into it accidentally from somewhere else. I see a lot of hope. I see a lot of hope for the future, and that hope and that positive feeling will only compound on itself as more and more people see the success and the impact of our sector on society.
Kimberly O’Donnell:
How have you managed burnout?
Bret Heinrich:
I will say COVID has been a real challenge for Wings of Hope and for organizations, frankly, across the world. Now, how to keep people safe, at the time, our average age of our volunteers was 70 years old, and there was such a real worry about keeping older folks safe during COVID and that they were more susceptible to the virus. Figuring out how to help people manage this incredible change we all went through, and here you and I are communicating across the airwaves and see each other and talk very clearly together. Things have changed forever, and that has been a source of stress, I think, on all of us.
For me, as I look back over the last two or three years, we’ve made some really great gains with Wings of Hope and COVID has forced us to innovate, but it’s probably been what I will look back on as the greatest achievement of my time, is just getting our team through this pandemic without a lot of casualties. People are happy and healthy. Our volunteers have returned, and we are continuing on upward trajectory. In aviation lingo, the word I like to think about Wings of Hope is that we’re on an ascent, but that came with a lot of stress, navigating COVID and making sure that we were ready to, everybody’s favorite word, pivot as necessary.
Kimberly O’Donnell:
Pivot, pivot, pivot, right? It’s been an incredible few years, but as you said earlier, there’s so much hope. There’s so much hope for our sector, for the organizations that we work with, the real impact that we can make on this world through new technology and through working together, advancing the field of fundraising and just supporting, bolstering the nonprofit sector in general.
Thank you for joining me on Accidental Fundraiser, a show for the Nonprofit leader, because together we can. Bret, if our listeners want to get connected with you and learn more about Wings of Hope, where’s the best place to go?
Bret Heinrich:
I would be delighted to connect with your listeners, and the easiest way to do that is send me an email and my email is so easy to remember. It’s my first name, B-R-E-T dot Heinrich, H-E-I-N-R-I-C-H at Wings of Hope dot NGO. So that’s [email protected]. And check us out online. Wingsofhope.ngo is our website, and we’re on all the social media. We’d love to hear from you and love to plug you into saving and changing lives through the power of aviation.
Kimberly O’Donnell:
Here are the key takeaways. One, being a board member means really engaging in the life of the organization. Make sure potential members know and understand that before they join and listen carefully to their skills and interests. Understand how each and every board member touches the mission personally and what their passions are. Engage them in a way that makes them feel really excited to be involved.
Second, the more you engage with an organization, the more you’re going to give of your resources, both in time and money. That’s why it’s so important to engage with your volunteers and donors to make them feel like they’re valued for their contributions. And third, know the resources that you have available to you and then use them. There are tons of great websites, trade groups, and organizations that exist to help you figure out the hard stuff involved with running a nonprofit and fundraising. Go ahead and learn as well as lean on them.
Yes, you can. I’m Kimberly. See you next time on Accidental Fundraiser, and be sure to follow along wherever you get your audio.