Brett Hagler · CEO, New Story | Brett has spent his career in both the startup world and the nonprofit sector, mixing the two to achieve success in both, and to that end, Brett is a vocal supporter leaning into big ideas, even when they present big challenges.

Coming from a cathedral of redwoods, from shared moments between a collective of concerned colleagues, this episode of the Nonstop Nonprofit podcast brings together visionary nonprofit leaders Justin Wheeler and Brett Hagler.

Justin is the CEO of Funraise and sometimes-host of the Nonstop Nonprofit podcast, and Brett is CEO of New Story, a nonprofit pioneering solutions to end homelessness. Together, they sat down at Camp Redwood, a creative gathering for social entrepreneurs, to talk about the state of the nonprofit industry—now and long-term.

As he and Justin discussed leaning into opportunities, Brett said, "The harder, more courageous decision will likely come with short-term pain, but ...the big idea that we have is going to be so much more growth that it's worth it." Knowing how and when to take that step is the crux of his conversation with Justin.

Tune in to hear nonprofit leaders just like yourself discuss stretch goal strategies, the crossroads of opportunity and obligation, and the value of using software as a strategy.

Justin Wheeler So we're in the middle of the redwoods? Yes. And we're here for what we're calling Camp Redwood. Yes. An idea that you had about a year ago, to bring nonprofit leaders together or social impact leaders, I should say, together. Can you tell us a little bit more about what Camp Redwood is?

Brett Hagler Yeah, it's, it's our our first event for gathering of different founders, CEOs and executives of social impact organizations that all have really important missions. And the idea is to bring us together in a place in a setting like this, in the redwoods, to talk about both big ideas and big challenges, and to really have a space to zoom out and think long term. And that's been so much of the messaging here is how do we create in an environment that, you know, where the tagline is, we're inside nature, but we're outside the box, and it's a space where people can really think and and imagine ways to do their work even better, and then be surrounded by other peers that they can relate with. Because we're all thinking in a similar way for our mission. And so we wanted to bring in speakers that can contribute to that. We wanted to also really focus on innovation and, and what that really means practically. And be able to have a setting where we can all dialog and discuss what that means, and also what are actions that we can now take this year. That will lead us towards the long term thinking, that we've talked about. And so, yeah, that's what it's been about. And started off by, just inviting a lot of people that I've got to know. And building new stories during my, my social entrepreneurial journey. And, that was a lot of the group that was here.

Justin Wheeler Amazing. When you were thinking about this, I mean, the first, at least the first time you and I talked about it was like, maybe a year ago. And you're thinking, like, at that moment, we were thinking. I hope we can achieve X.

Brett Hagler Yeah.

Justin Wheeler Had, like what? What do you think was achieved from this last few days? Bringing together some amazing speakers, amazing leaders. Did it achieve what you're hoping it achieve?

Brett Hagler Yeah, I really think it. I really think it did. The main things that come to my mind is that I feel people are walking away with a few really big ideas and actions that they can start taking, and this year, which is 2024, but the results are going to happen more in the future. Yeah. And so A lot of the thinking at Camp Redwood has been, how do we encourage people and as leaders together to think more long term and to have a bigger picture perspective and to really zoom out of our important operational roles in the quarter or even in the year, and think even beyond the year about what could be, you know, better and have more of an outsized impact, with our models, with our strategies. And that's where a lot of the thinking started here. And then, you know, we can take our own actions, this year. But that was a lot of the hope was the long-term thinking.

Justin Wheeler Yeah. Awesome. And I think there's like a lot of really powerful themes that kind of emerged just through whether it was like ideas that were ignited through some of the just amazing speakers on stage, or just in the conversations that were happening just organically at the fire pit and, yeah, at the kitchen table and, all the just like the hike, I mean, just just being in a magical place like where we're at just lends to a lot of creativity and just, you know, just a lot of free thinking and and conversation. One of the things that I think was a theme that challenged the way I think about certain things is the concept of scale. A lot of times when we like, think of scale, we're, we're thinking of, of like revenue growth, right? Which really that that will always be a factor of scale. Yeah. But it's not what drives scale. It's the big idea and vision of how do we achieve the ultimate impact. And I feel like that was just communicated in, in so many different ways throughout the conference. And I appreciated that that message, really throughout the week.

Brett Hagler And the revenue follows that.

Justin Wheeler Yeah.

Brett Hagler Yeah. And then it's like, how do you if you have and maybe an evolved idea or a way to reach more of your, your mission, who you're trying to reach, then you can design the revenue model to follow that.

Justin Wheeler Absolutely.

Brett Hagler And when it's done on fundraise, it's even more efficient. Yeah.

Justin Wheeler Nice little plug. The other you know, the other thing too, that I think, makes. Camp Redwood. So unique then versus anything I've been to. Yeah. Is the individuals that was that was sharing their experiences. You know from from stage. They weren't all nonprofit like leaders. And I think sometimes we can get into this eco echo chamber as nonprofit leaders. And we just we don't think that there's a lot we can borrow outside of that. But yeah, it was just like it couldn't have been more relevant, like the topics that were being shared, even though a lot of the speakers were not, you know, nonprofit like leaders. They were founders, right? Entrepreneurs. And I really like that reef reframing, whether it was intentional or not of nonprofit executives and leaders to consider themselves founders, entrepreneurs, not everybody going after some of the biggest problems.

Brett Hagler Yeah, I mean, that's that was the whole purpose. And, you know, whenever I've described, myself or our team, I never put nonprofit in front of it, like, or when I'm talking about others. In the space, I just say they're, they're entrepreneurs and they're executives that are trying to go after, you know, really important, big challenges. And I think that type of founder mentality and, and those frameworks apply to for profit and nonprofit. Yeah. And I think that it's it's awesome to just have it come together and not have to be like, oh, well, what about this? There are differences obviously, and I think people are smart enough to filter out what are the differences. But yeah, concepts like we talked about here, you know we started with around communication. Right. And and we had phenomenal, media executives and, and someone from Y Combinator talked to us about the power of clarity and communication and in storytelling. And they were using case studies that weren't from the nonprofits.

Justin Wheeler Like, yeah, Teen Vogue. Right.

Brett Hagler Exactly. Yeah. And then, you know, we've had, former NFL athlete that now has gotten into, investing and, and he has his own investing firm that's grown and evolved and, you know, talking about team building with him and, and concepts as, as a leader. Yeah, a leader, a leader as a leader. It doesn't matter if they're, you know, a nonprofit ExAC a for profit exac an NFL player. And so a lot of that, is so applicable to everybody that was here. And then the last one, which was incredible this morning, was a gentleman that that gave us the best lessons on innovation and first principles thinking. Yeah, in a way that we could all take and apply to, to our missions.

Justin Wheeler Absolutely. Yeah. That was it was a powerful last session. So practical. Just so, so many wise words. From, from that one of the things to you, I felt like there's another theme here was just like a, a deep sense of vulnerability. And like, I'm curious from your perspective how, like, intentional that was, because a lot of, a lot of the speakers talked about, like, their failures. And, and there was I don't know if, like, coming over the last 24 months, just kind of your guys's transition to. Yeah, where your story is at, if that was, like, intentional or if that was just something that organically happened, like, you often don't hear people talking from stage about failure and where that takes them. But there was just that. I feel like that really set the tone for just the whole, last couple of days as people connected, you know, offline and, and so forth. So, yeah. Was that intentional or was that just kind of a product of just bringing great people together?

Brett Hagler It was intentional. And I'd say that, you know, first thing was, I think being in I used to live I live in New York City now, but I used to live out in, in Silicon Valley and news story got a lot of our, our start and our DNA being out here kind of, you know, where we are now in California. And I think there's just a culture here that is more open to, of course, risk taking. And knowing that if you're going after something that is challenging but is worthwhile and meaningful, there is definitely a chance it's not going to work.

Justin Wheeler Yeah.

Brett Hagler And that doesn't mean you shouldn't go after it. And even if it doesn't work, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't have tried or you shouldn't have done it. And so I was intentional about having one won't say their names right now, but two phenomenal social impact founders that I would probably put up there in the top 1% if you just had to say by capability. And they both told stories about things not working. Yeah. And a company or a startup ending in a way that was not the vision, but they had the courage to go after something, try it. And there was, you know, a purpose in all of that. Yeah. That was I think one is just kind of being out here and more of that culture. And then the other thing is making it. Feel real and authentic to other founders that we're going to. If we're going after a big vision, it's going to be a long term journey. And along that journey, there are going to be times when you're absolutely crushing it and that's going to feel great. And there's also going to be times that are really freaking hard and are challenging and you're messing up. You're missing numbers. And then obviously there's a lot mostly probably in the middle of that. Right. Absolutely crushing and and challenging. But I wanted to be real about some of my journey, my story, and how we've had a lot of challenges, over a two year period. You know, misnomers, all these things. But ideally it's all in service of the bigger vision and, and the long term and that we're trying to communicate together.

Justin Wheeler Because, yeah, I think there's like this like perception for people looking on the outside. And I'm talking specifically about organizations that like look to news story or other kind of iconic brands in the social impact space as they're always up and to the right. And it creates this like pressure that if if they're always up to the right and we're not up to the right, what are we doing wrong? Right. But the reality is, no, there's there's, there are going to be these dips or there are going to be these challenges that is just for every organization is going to face, regardless of how amazing it looks from from the outside. And I think that that vulnerability, I heard it from so many different people talking how that was like so beneficial and refreshing to hear that we're not alone in, you know, the challenges. And one of the speakers yesterday said, you know, he's like, if if success is like up here, there's no I think the phrase he uses like there's no escalator or elevator to it that gets you up there faster. You just have to grind it out and you're going to have to put in the work and work your ass off. You have to work as hard as you possibly can if you want achieve, you know, whatever your vision might be. And I think that like that message of of grit and you're going to fail. But if you get back up and you keep trying, eventually you're going to come out with a win. And I think that that was a really nice, succinct message to kind of throughout the last couple of days.

Brett Hagler Yeah, I agree. And then I'd add to that as well. When we think about making, which is what we like, we try to talk about a lot here of these, like you're going to have these bigger decision points, right. And the gravitational pull is going to be to do the the easier decision. Right. That means maybe less shake up, less fear, less change. And sometimes it's wise to do that obviously. But sometimes you can look at the harder decision and it will likely come with some short term pain or challenges. But you know, on the other side of that is that ideally a whole bigger opportunity that you would have never had if you didn't go through the hard period? Yeah. And I think that would be the more courageous decision to make for your mission, right? For the long term mission and being able to zoom out and say, I can, I don't want to, but if I have to take some shorter term pain and even if that could be a year. Yeah, right. Or for new story or almost two years where things were more challenging, more painful than I was used to or we were used to or honestly was even is even sustainable. But it was all in service of what's on the other side of that. Yeah. And is what's on the other side of that worth it enough to go for it? Yeah. And I think founders and executives like that's the that's the big stuff. Yeah. That's the courageous stuff that you get to. You get to do it, make those decisions.

Justin Wheeler Is there any like tips that you rely on or disciplines? I guess I should say that you rely on to kind of get off the hamster wheel to remove yourself from the short term interim. I mean, you gotta you always that's important, you know, like you've said. Yeah. But it's sometimes can just dominate your, you know, what you're thinking and where you're spending your time. And so any disciplines that you've learned over the last decade that has really helped you stay focused on the end goal where you're trying to go.

Brett Hagler Yeah, that's a good question. I also want to say, like, I don't recommend indoor advice for every year. You're constantly thinking like, well, should I change? Should I evolve? Right? It should flow more naturally where you obviously don't want to be constantly like changing your strategy every year. Yeah, right. That's not a recipe for success. I think that you do over, you know, the course of time or period. You do learn a lot from maybe how you started. Right. So you're gathering all these data points in these learnings and you're getting insights into, you know, what would it take to make this, whether maybe 100 times I want to use the word bigger, but I'll start with that 100 times bigger or 100 times better or higher quality. Yeah. Right. And then you can start to imagine what it would actually look like to do that. And I think that's when, you know, you could get ideas about how to evolve. Yeah. Your strategy, but you don't there's no like perfect calculus to. Yeah. How many times it definitely shouldn't be like every year because that's exhausting. And it's it's too spread out.

Justin Wheeler Yeah.

Brett Hagler I also think that you need to pop your head up and zoom out. You know, I don't know how many every couple of years or whatever and just say, like, am I on this path, the strategy path that is going to give us the best chance to get to this end outcome that we've set or end goal. And so for me, you know, one of the things that I did, last year is a new story was coming off of, more of a down year if you were just to measure some of the annual metrics.

Justin Wheeler Yeah.

Brett Hagler Then we had we did have year over year growth and then we had a down year. And, you know, I was pretty upset about that. It was our first year that I felt like I missed the mark. We didn't do what we said we were going to do. And I did this exercise where I did it instead of just looking at those 12 months and, you know, like judging how I feel based off of those outcomes. I drew almost a 16 year chart, and I said, I want to look at the first six years of building this story. And then this year I just went through was a dip. And I think the next year might even be flat or a dip. But what we're building during that dip, because of the big idea that we have to evolve on the other side of it, is going to be so much more growth. Yeah, that it's worth it. And then I basically looked at it almost as like a stock chart that would tell a story of this is our path if we didn't make this strategy change. And, you know, it's a nice path, it's good. And then this is the path that looks like making this change would came with short term dips. But then on the on the other side, it was so much, so much more than if we didn't make that decision.

Justin Wheeler Yeah. Something you said I think it was the first day and I'm putting together maybe that this like period, this like this dip period was also a pivotal change for news story in that you said something along the lines of like, it'd be irresponsible not to try this. Can you expand upon like what? What you meant by that? And was that was that something that you had realized going into the dip while you're in the dip, or it's what's helping helping you come out of the dip?

Brett Hagler Yeah, I think it's I think that's a framework. I'll tell the quick story. That is a really important question for founders, executives and and their boards to think about. And when you have a big a big decision to make, right. That could be should we invest into this program or R&D project that there's a lot of risk to it. Right. But what's the upside. Right. And then you kind of make the calculation like okay, if it works. Right. Given the amount we're investing, which you probably don't want to bet the whole company on it. Right. But like, but like what amount that we're investing from our budget is enough to say if this works for our mission, for the people we serve, it's actually irresponsible for us not to try it because of the upside. And you have to be willing to have that trade off of, well, it might not work. And why would I spend money on this thing that I know is not going to work? If I can just go serve people that with my current program that I know already works.

Justin Wheeler Yeah.

Brett Hagler Right. And the answer would be because you're trying to get more lift or more reach in a way that's going to the only way you can do that is by is by trying something new. And so yeah, it'd be is this irresponsible not to try. Yeah. And that's like a judgment question. And then when News Story decided to evolve, a lot of our, program model and, and funding model and business model, the question that I asked myself and our board was, you know, we could keep doing what we're doing, but we really believe this is a path that. Would impact more people for our mission. Is it irresponsible for us not to try this? And not for not for keeping the organization safe. Not for, you know, all these other optics, but for the actual people we are trying to serve and work with for the mission. Is this irresponsible not to try for them?

Justin Wheeler Yeah. And it sounds like you really leaned into that and. Yeah, you're, you're doubling down, and going for that upside shot. Yeah. It's going to be fun to watch your guys's progress over the next several years. Thank you guys. Go for it. Another thing that I feel like came up a lot, both from stage and and, just in conversations. Was this idea of burnout? Just founder burnout. Entrepreneurial burnout. What do you do to stay ambitious? Especially over the, you know, the last eight, nine, actually, your ten going on your ten year story. How do you stay ambitious? How do you stay in the game?

Brett Hagler Yeah, it's a good question. You know, there's a lot of the, I think more, my routine, I want to call it basic, but like, the more routine, basic habits that are important for me, and it's, just, you know, try my best not to not to overwork, to delegate, to just try to choose a few of the big main things that only I can work on. So I think from just like a time management standpoint, that helps of just being smart about not being to, you know, everybody has their own limit. So I don't want to say certain hours. I love working hard, but obviously at the same time, you have to be wise about it. Yeah. You know, being smart about about about sleep, fitness, all that stuff. Diet. I really do think as, as a founder that stuff matters because ultimately it's going to give you energy. It's going to do all these things where you need energy and you need consistent habits that are going to, you know, like an athlete that are going to help you.

Justin Wheeler Yeah, help.

Brett Hagler You go forward. And if you ignore all that stuff, you kind of ignore it at your own, your own peril.

Justin Wheeler Yeah, right.

Brett Hagler So those are some of the more basic things that are just being intentional. The other things that I think are probably more important are, surrounding myself with with other peers and founders, you know, doing stuff like this where we can talk about real challenges. We can talk about certain issues that we may see years out and try to come up with solutions. You know, so if I'll say if compensation and pay and the current nonprofit structure is maybe going to be a problem long term, like how do we think about that? Yeah. You know, so being around other high quality people that you can, you can be real and vulnerable with too has been super helpful. And then, you know, for me, the last one has been making sure that our strategy like what we're doing, how we're doing is exciting and stimulating to me. And like very interesting. That's probably a more selfish answer. But like you, it should be something. And this is when we evolved our model that I'm I'm like very intellectually curious about. I'm very motivated by, I want to learn more. I want to, like, see us grow in a certain area. And I think that's that's life giving because it's, it's a genuine interest that I can't shake.

Justin Wheeler Yeah.

Brett Hagler So, so, yeah. And then I think last thing would just be trying to have a more clear, I want to call it an end game, but like bigger picture path to making revenue, even more sustainable, but like, a path that doesn't feel like it's a constant slog.

Justin Wheeler Yeah.

Brett Hagler But this, like. And I could be with your team. That could be with your model. That could be with so many examples. Monthly recurring. I mean, there's so many examples, but, like, if you currently feel burned out with your existing fundraising model, you either got to change the model or, I don't know, maybe you are actually. Yeah, too burned out from it.

Justin Wheeler Yeah. That's good, that's good. Well, you've been you've been talking a lot this week and so we got to give you some rest. So I've got two more questions. It's going to be, some shameless plug here for go for fun. I love it. You know, we, we've been we've been following these story for a long time. Yeah. And, you know, before, News Story started working with fundraise, you guys, who built your own, tech? To to manage your fundraising. What was what was the reason for shifting, from in-house, building your own tech to manage, gift processing and and and so forth to, you know, going with someone, like, fundraise.

Brett Hagler Yeah. I mean, we had we had multiple software engineers on our team, and I don't know if we thought that we could just build stuff better, but there was just a mentality of like, we want to customize it, we want to have it more in-house. And we did that for years and it worked.

Justin Wheeler You guys raised tons of money.

Brett Hagler It was yeah, it was, it was it worked. But like all it ultimately was a calculation of like, is this actually worth it for all the money we're spending? Yeah. Right. The time that it's it's not just money. It's also like really smart people's minds and bandwidth. Right. And the calculation of that being like, if we could just partner with a really, really great platform that has a trusted, awesome product. That's the key, right? Yeah. It's like, if it's not a great product, then you're not going to want you're going to be way, way, way more, resistant to actually doing it. But I think, some of my staff and, you know, we were able to demo the product, test it out, feel it out, and just got to the point where it's like, this is almost like this is a no brainer.

Justin Wheeler Yeah.

Brett Hagler Is to partner with somebody that this is all they think about. This is this is their business. This is their product. They're constantly making it better. They're constantly improving and refreshing it. And we get to be recipients of of their product. Yeah. So it's a great decision. I highly recommend it.

Justin Wheeler And we're a year in a year, I think, I think the February is a year into to the partnership. And how is how is funders delivered for you and the team?

Brett Hagler Our team loves it. Absolutely. So tattoo ten recommend. And I know you and I were talking the other day on the hike about some of your product vision. You have some some new things that that may be coming, for fundraise. And, and that's also very exciting to know that you all are a company that, isn't just settling with, with the current product, even though the current products are great and I highly recommend for what it's doing, but you're also thinking through how do we create more value, for for our customers. Yeah. And in ways that you and I were talking about, where, we feel those pains that you're talking about in other areas of the organization from a forecasting perspective and some of those, those things that, we could try to do it all ourselves. We could hire more people to do it all ourselves. But why would we do that if we could have a trusted, you know, software platform that can do it for us? Yeah.

Justin Wheeler I mean, you've got a you've got a $30 trillion problem to solve yourself. So, why why focus on the software? You know, one of the things the speaker said today, the Instacart story about how, you know, there was several components to cart that just had failed. And then it was like the right time. You same with like, Uber like Uber wouldn't have worked at home and have a smartphone and their handset. And what I'm excited about where Fundrise is going next is, is really because of where technology has come, started, fundraise eight years ago and where technology is at today, specifically around AI and what we can do with that to help strengthen an organization's ability to fundraise, and to have more insightful, intelligence about their donors and, what's happening at the ground level there is it gives me a lot of energy for the future, because technology is progressing in such a way that's just going to make, us be able to innovate at a faster clip and provide better and more value for, for the nonprofit community. Yeah. So, Brett, thank you so much for letting us be a part of campus.

Brett Hagler Would honor to.

Justin Wheeler Have y'all.

Brett Hagler Amazing partner.

Justin Wheeler Absolutely. Thank you.

Brett Hagler Yeah. Thanks.