The Sign-In Table

Most nonprofit leaders are carrying something they can't put down. Not the mission — the machinery. The passwords, the vendor who'll only call them, the report nobody else knows how to pull. Somewhere along the way, the leader quietly became the system.

Latoya U. Robinson has a name for that, and a way out of it. She's spent twenty years in the nonprofit sector, fifteen of them as an executive director, and for the last six she's led Neighbors for Better Neighborhoods in Winston-Salem, North Carolina — where she grew the budget from roughly $400,000 to $1.2 million. Growth is where she learned the lesson that became her second act: when the work outgrows the systems underneath it, the gap gets absorbed by people. Usually the same two or three people.

She founded LUR Growth to help nonprofits, foundations and independent schools build operating systems their own teams can actually run and own. Diagnose. Build. Transfer. Measure.

WHAT WE COVER
• What it looks like when a leader becomes the organization's system
• The early signs that the work depends on one person's memory
• Taking NBN from $400K to $1.2M — and what broke first
• Why she built systems instead of hiring
• Her first three-week vacation in twenty years, and what had to exist before she could stop checking
• The hidden coordination work living between disconnected tools
• Diagnose, Build, Transfer, Measure — and why "transfer" is the step consultants skip
• Responsible AI in a nonprofit back office: where it helps, where it's oversold
• Her rule for keeping a human in the loop
• Technology on a budget: what a small nonprofit should buy, and what it shouldn't
• How boards and funders can fund operating capacity, not just programs
• Resident-led community development: Grassroots Grants, and paying neighbors for their leadership

CONNECT WITH LATOYA
LUR Growth: https://www.lurgrowth.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lurobinson529/
Systems that Hold (Substack): https://latoyaurobinson.substack.com/
The Calm Infrastructure Lab: https://www.skool.com/the-calm-infrastructure-lab-3421/about

NEIGHBORS FOR BETTER NEIGHBORHOODS
Founded 1990 · Winston-Salem, NC · Grassroots Grants, the Resident Leader Initiative, and 35 years of resident-led community development.
https://nbncommunity.org

ABOUT THE SIGN-IN TABLE
The Sign-In Table is the podcast for nonprofit founders and volunteer leaders — the people doing the work, in their own words. New episodes every other Friday at noon ET. This is a bonus episode.
Watch and subscribe: https://www.thesignintable.com
Want to be a guest? https://www.volunteerbadge.com/podcast/guest

VolunteerBadge gives nonprofits volunteer background checks starting at $5, with no setup fees and no contracts. See who's using it: https://www.volunteerbadge.com/impact-report

#Nonprofit #NonprofitLeadership #Burnout

Thomas Nelson built the youth mentorship program in Georgia that nobody built for him when he was a kid.

Dare 2B You Foundation works with at-risk young people in Cordele, Georgia and across the state, through mentorship, leadership training and emotional support. Thomas Nelson founded it and serves as its President and Executive Director. He started it to build the kind of steady adult support he went without growing up, and he is candid about what that takes when you begin with no blueprint and no budget.

In this episode:
• Why Thomas started Dare 2B You, and the gap in his own childhood it was built to fill
• What mentorship actually looks like in practice, past the part where an adult shows up once
• The challenges young people are facing that the adults around them tend to miss
• Starting a nonprofit from the ground up: the paperwork, the money and the first year
• What separates a real partnership from a logo swap, for nonprofits and the people who want to help them
• How volunteers, donors and local organizations can back the work in Georgia

About Thomas Nelson
Thomas Nelson is the Founder, President and Executive Director of Dare 2B You Foundation in Cordele, Georgia. He founded the organization to build the support system he needed growing up, and leads its mentorship and leadership programs for young people across the state.

LINKS
Website: https://www.dare2byou.org
Donate: https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/support-youth-mentorship
Dare 2B You Foundation on VolunteerBadge: https://www.volunteerbadge.com/impact/dare-2b-you-foundation-inc-fcefcb

ABOUT THE SIGN-IN TABLE
The Sign-In Table is an interview podcast from VolunteerBadge. Every other Friday, host Matt Angerer talks with nonprofit leaders about why they started, the difference they make and how you can help.
All episodes: https://www.thesignintable.com
Lead a nonprofit? Be a guest: https://www.volunteerbadge.com/podcast/guest
Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@volunteerbadge?sub_confirmation=1

#YouthMentoring #StartANonprofit #TheSignInTable

After more than 35 years as an educator, Catherine Stephenson started something of her own — and named it for her parents, Ira and Rose.

On Episode 2 of The Sign-In Table, the Founder and CEO of IROSA Cares joins host Matt Angerer to talk about what happens when young people stop being treated as recipients and start being treated as contributors.

IROSA Cares is a Stamford, Connecticut nonprofit founded in December 2023 that empowers underserved youth and their families to lead through volunteerism, education and service.

In this episode:
• Ira, Rose, and the aunt who was a school principal: the family that shaped her
• What 35 years in education showed her that she couldn't leave alone
• The IROSA Cares Impact Club for students in grades 5 through 8 at Stamford PAL
• A 9/11 Day of Service where young people packed 10,000 meals and 100 care packages for veterans and first responders
• The annual MLK Day of Service, and how you build a tradition kids come back to
• Why she held a Volunteer Appreciation Dinner for her youth volunteers
• Fighting food insecurity with CT Foodshare and Filling in the Blanks
• Building a board, and the infrastructure funding that small nonprofits rarely get
• What a year-round corporate partner could unlock in 2027
• Passing on a legacy of service, from her mother to her own sons

Support IROSA Cares
Donate: https://gofund.me/093f35d46
Volunteer: https://forms.gle/GoQM91fPzpyWan5W8
Website: https://www.irosacares.org
Follow: Instagram @irosa_cares · Facebook @irosacaresinc

Meet IROSA Cares on VolunteerBadge:
https://www.volunteerbadge.com/impact/irosa-cares-inc-5a88f4?utm_source=thesignintable.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=podcast-site-episode

About The Sign-In Table
Stories from the nonprofit leaders keeping their communities safe, served and strong. New episodes every other Friday at noon ET.
All episodes: https://www.thesignintable.com
Be a guest: https://www.volunteerbadge.com/podcast/guest

Hosted by Matt Angerer, Co-Founder & General Manager of VolunteerBadge.
https://www.volunteerbadge.com

#nonprofit #youthleadership #volunteering #communityservice #stamfordct #podcast

When her daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, Brandi Pillow found help for the medical side, but almost none for the emotional side. So she built braveONE.

In our very first episode, Matt Angerer talks with Brandi Pillow, founder of braveONE, a nonprofit that pairs kids living with Type 1 Diabetes with trained, screened adult mentors who live with T1D themselves. Brandi shares why a child needs someone older who has already lived it, and how meeting adults with Type 1 who are athletes, pilots and professionals shows kids the diagnosis doesn't have to stop them.

In this episode:
- What was missing on the emotional side after her daughter's diagnosis
- Why one-to-one mentoring reaches kids who don't open up in big groups
- What a mentor actually does with their mentee
- How braveONE matches a mentor and a child, beyond zip code
- Growing to meet demand without losing the personal connection
- What she wishes more people understood about raising a child with Type 1 Diabetes

How to help braveONE:
Become a mentor (adults living with T1D): https://braveone.org/get-involved/
Donate: https://give.cornerstone.cc/braveone
Website: https://www.braveone.org