Give Amplify Connect

The Power of Dialogue in Nonprofit Capacity Building

• Wolfe Pack Warriors Foundation • Episode 20

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Join Mike Grogan, President and CEO of Integral Org, to discuss the transformative power of conversations in nonprofit organizations and how they can fuel change and collaboration. Learn about the mission of Integral Org to support capacity building and organizational development in nonprofits across Alberta.

Key Messages

  • Exploring the role of conversations in facilitating nonprofit change
  • Highlighting Integral Org's capacity-building approach through education and support 
  • Strategies for nonprofit leaders to enhance organizational effectiveness
  • Insights into the complexities of mergers and collaborations within the sector 
  • Discussing the importance of accessible resources for nonprofits  
  • Encouragement for nonprofits to embrace conversations about their purpose and future  

Other Links Mentioned


About Our Guest
Mike Grogan has worked in the nonprofit sector for over 25 years and is recognized for his ability to inspire nonprofit organizations to tackle complex issues and create sustainable solutions to organizational and community issues. His skills and experience stem from a diverse background that encompasses leading backcountry wilderness trips, building organizations from the ground up, and developing leading-edge collaborative and capacity-building initiatives.


What is Give Amplify Connect?

There’s a story behind every action. Give Amplify Connect is a podcast from the Wolfe Pack Warriors Foundation that gives a voice to the Alberta-based charitable organizations creating community impact, changing lives, and making a difference. Driven by honest conversations with host Kristy Wolfe, it’s a chance for passionate changemakers to share their story.

Learn more at wolfepackwarriors.com

Podcast music used with artist permission
"Okay" by Ellen Braun


Mike Grogan:

all change begins in conversation. That the way we start to change our organizations or our lives or the sector around its community. You start with conversations. So toolkits and workshops online are great. They're accessible. We think they're well done, but that power comes when you have a conversation with somebody.

Intro:

Welcome to Give Amplify Connect, the Wolfe Pack Warriors Foundation podcast that dives deeper into the stories of the charitable organizations in Alberta that are making a difference. Host and producer Kristy Wolfe sits down with the leaders of the nonprofit world to learn more about their purpose, hopes and dreams. Settle in for an honest conversation with Kristy about the impact people are making in their communities and how they keep moving forward.

Kristy Wolfe:

With me today is Mike Grogan. Now he is the president and CEO of Integral Org. And, Mike, I want to get to know you, but will you explain Integral Org a bit first?

Mike Grogan:

Well, thank you, christy. Yeah, we are a bit of a different type of nonprofit in terms of what we do is we help other nonprofits do what they do better. So we are what is called a capacity builder and that means that we are here to, I think, in general, come alongside you to walk with you, no matter who you are and what stage of life you are, as a nonprofit and charity, and to help you do what you do better. And the way we do that is in some very discrete areas. We are an approved legal services provider, so we provide legal services for nonprofits and charities.

Mike Grogan:

We do a lot of work in board governance, so with helping boards understand their roles, how to be a good, healthy team. Some work in policies. We do a lot of work in strategy and strategy from brand new startup where are you going to get from here to there in the first days to full-blown mergers of large organizations. So anything that sort of helps you plan those routes forward is kind of in our lane. And then leadership development helping leaders of nonprofits, you know, figure out who they are and how they can work within their organization. So our work is entirely with nonprofits. Those are our clients, those are the organizations that we work with.

Kristy Wolfe:

Mike, how did you get involved with Integral Org?

Mike Grogan:

That's a great question. So I've been involved in nonprofits probably the last 30 years of my life and even before I probably knew I was involved in a nonprofit. I worked at summer camps when I was younger and just loved being with kids and taking kids into the backcountry. I started a nonprofit. So I guess I started to understand what a nonprofit is and things like governance and fundraising. Beyond doing all the fun stuff you like to do, you realize there's got to be an organization behind that and so for years that's what I did. I worked for different youth-serving organizations, started some, built some.

Mike Grogan:

But once you sort of grew up and realized that probably you shouldn't spend your summers wandering the backcountry with other kids, you should spend time with your own, I sort of moved on to other work and found myself at an organization called CCDO, the Calgary Chamber of Voluntary Organizations, and got to know the sector writ large, All the tens of thousands of organizations out there maybe not knowing them, but knowing of them anyway and realizing that there's a whole world beyond my own personal interests, my own personal passions, there's a thing called a sector and spent a number of years there and then, probably about six years ago, five and a half years ago, found myself at Integra Org just as it was starting up.

Mike Grogan:

As you say it was. Abam was one of the founders of bon and betty thompson the two founders, uh and a lawyer and an accountant had started this thing and uh realized that they needed somebody who had some non-profit experience to come in and take it to the next level. So that's been my work the last five and a half years. Um, and every time you think you get a sense of where organizations are, who's out there, you realize there's so many more organizations out there doing such great work across this province.

Kristy Wolfe:

Well, Mike, I came across you at the Bow Valley Nonprofit Summit and, I'll be honest, that's not the first time I've come across. I was in a session that you were putting on about mergers and it ended up being about a lot of different things. I want to come back to that that you were putting on about mergers and it ended up being about a lot of different things. I want to come back to that, but I've actually been in quite a few of the workshops that you've put on through Integral Org. So that was one of the things that caught my attention early on. We had met Yvonne Chenier when we were creating the Wolfpack Warriors Foundation and she'd done some work with us. She's spoken to our board about what it is to be a foundation, how the board should be doing, so some of that board governance stuff that you were speaking about.

Kristy Wolfe:

But I also found that I needed to start learning a bit more.

Kristy Wolfe:

Nonprofit is also not my background and I needed to kind of look into that board governance please.

Kristy Wolfe:

But I thought that Integral Org and the way they offer those free workshops to kind of give a taste, question and answer have really set people up to kind of start and then figure out where to go next. So I just I am on your newsletter, I look at it every single time it comes in. I often sign up for a workshop, sometimes free, some you offer other services as well, and so I'm always looking at what's coming up and I've actually shared it with my board members as well, because there's been a number of presentations that you've done that were exactly what we were talking about and exactly like the next step. So I just kind of want to throw that out there, because you're doing work in the community, that, especially in the nonprofit community, there isn't a cost attached to everything that's there, that it is about education and capacity building, but then there's further services, and that's been an incredible thing for me and my board to get to learn about. So thank you.

Mike Grogan:

Oh, thank you.

Kristy Wolfe:

And then will you talk a little bit about what you were presenting at the Bow Valley Nonprofit Summit.

Mike Grogan:

Absolutely, and just maybe to go back to your comments, you know this is what we do. Our model is to educate. We are an education charity, and our job is to help organizations such as yourselves through whatever stage of life you're in. So what we know, too, though, is that no one has one issue or one area of need or one area of learning to sort of develop. We try to be responsive, that maybe you've got the board stuff figured out, now you've got to work in strategy, or maybe there's some legal compliance piece as you think about risk management or leadership, or fundraising has become a new one. It's probably our most popular set of workshops is how do you start fundraising from being a small organization? So we try to listen to the needs of the sector and adapt our model. We're not here to say here's our expertise, now go do it. We like to come alongside folks and adapt what we do.

Mike Grogan:

The session at the Bow Valley Summit was a fantastic session, you know. Remarkable gathering, great work being done in that area both in Banff and Camorra, so quite a treat to be there. I'm talking about what we would call our strategic alliances might work together from collaboration and just being kind of partners on one end, sort of informally up to full-blown mergers and bringing organizations together where you're having one organization go away or create a new organization to do that. A little more complex work. Well, perhaps a lot more complex work at that end of the spectrum. But those types of services fit so well our areas of knowledge. They involve legal and governance and strategy. That's why mergers or amalgamations have become a much bigger part of our work in the last few years.

Mike Grogan:

I think coming out of COVID now into perhaps another downturn. I expect that will continue. But it also really fits into the model of, or the idea, I guess, of how do you rethink purpose before organization? How do you think how do we get great work done out in community and the organization is perhaps a means to an end? Now organization is really important. It's important they're run well, that they're compliant, that they're well-governed and well-led. But at the end of the day, what we want to see, and what I think we want to see in society, is great things being done for all kinds of folks, not to just sustain nonprofits but to elevate purposes and strategic alliances, whether it's some long-term partnership or bringing together parts of organization or full-blown mergers. I think that's a way that sort of elevates that idea of purpose before organization.

Kristy Wolfe:

I have to say I wrote down purpose before organization. That's one of those things that you put on a sticky note and just kind of remind yourself, because you can get bogged down in some of the details and the tracking and all of those pieces and just honestly, that's a really great reminder just for me to why are we doing this? What are we doing this for? Because we all have these huge purposes that brought us into this work. And for the Wolfpack Warriors Foundation it is really like the idea of give, amplify and connect. We recognize we're not the biggest foundation on the block and the amount of money that we can give compared to other organizations it's not the same. But what are some other strengths that we can bring to support nonprofits that maybe they could benefit from?

Kristy Wolfe:

And this podcast is one of those things. How can we help share a message? So thank you again for being on this and just bringing some of these ideas forward. I also want to just kind of touch on that. There's quite a few non-profit toolkits that you have on your website. Can you talk a little bit about those?

Mike Grogan:

One of our values is making information or resources available to people on their terms. So it's one thing to do a workshop and say you've got a show up at 1 o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon. I think that style of delivery doesn't work as well for a lot of people, especially these days. People want things on demand. We're revamping our education model to be a bit more of an on-demand model. You can log in and watch our workshops whenever you want. But toolkits are a part of that as well, and probably a little more detailed.

Mike Grogan:

So things like an occupational health and safety toolkit which is a part of the government sort of regulatory piece of work we do to make sure that you know that, taking complex bodies of work and trying to simplify them down so they're accessible. We realize a lot of the work we do, especially in compliance, whether that's occupational health and safety or some of the CRA and revenue agency pieces. They're not designed for easily accessible or layman type sort of access. So our role is sensemaker, to break it down to make sure they're compliant and they're powerful. But people can understand them and use them in bite-sized chunks. So our toolkits tend to do that. They give you something that's on demand that you can take and craft and use for your organization.

Mike Grogan:

That is perhaps a part of a supply chain of services. In some ways we don't like to see any one part of a work standalone. So if we do a workshop, perhaps it's a toolkit that goes with it, maybe a one-on-one sort of follow-up consultation, if that's what you want. And if you wanted some deeper dive work, we would do some consulting with you. So we try to fit them into this service pathway where they can meet multiple audiences on their terms.

Kristy Wolfe:

No, I appreciate that and I think definitely take a look at integralorgca I would highly suggest setting up for their newsletter. But also there, I mean, everything's really well laid out on your website and the way you're talking about it reminds me that, yes, there's these different ways that people approach information and sometimes it is just a consultation you need and sometimes there's some work to be done first and then going into the consultation. And so when I think about we started in a nonprofit, what work had to go into that? Then getting our board building some of the policies, what work had to go into that? Then getting our board building some of the policies, what work had to go into that? So I really love the way there's so many different toolkits and workshops that people can kind of pick and choose where they're at and what they need at any given point. You guys have done a really great job at this.

Mike Grogan:

Thank you. I think what for us, there's two values that come out of this or feed into that, I guess as much as come out of it it is. One is that if you sit in a session with me or watch it in any workshop I do, you'll see a quote called all change begins in conversation. That the way we start to change our organizations or our lives or the sector around us community, you start with conversations. So toolkits and workshops online are great. They're accessible. We think they're well done. But that power comes when you have a conversation with somebody, when you take materials that we put out there and we start to talk about that.

Mike Grogan:

We also realize, too, that running a non-profit is hard, no matter if you're big or small, been around forever or just brand new. There's not just one problem or one issue, one area of development you have to work on. So this multi-disciplinary, I think, is where we have some strengths in that area. No one comes to us and just says you know, I've just got a fundraising problem. It's usually some other pieces in there, maybe some governance, some planning pieces, and for us to either help out where we can or point into other directions that are beyond our work. We're not just here to promote our work, we're here to build organizations. If there's other people we can say, go talk to these folks, that's certainly a root for us as well.

Kristy Wolfe:

Well, that's why I felt like having Integral Org was a really good fit coming on the podcast Right now.

Kristy Wolfe:

The Wolfpack Warriors Foundation is working with the Jerry Forbes Center Foundation and they are based in Edmonton. It is a shared space model where 25 nonprofits are housed within the same space. 25 nonprofits are housed in within the same space, and the conversation that we had on the podcast was just about how that does support collaboration and conversation, in that you are in shared workspaces, you're walking past people in the hall, like things come up. Somebody knows that somebody else has dealt with this issue in their organization and and sometimes that virtual piece we lose all of those just water cooler type conversations that that don't get to happen. Kind of came about because I'm thinking about, and our board is thinking about, how nonprofits can support each other in this landscape that we're in as well, and so, seeing you at the Bow Valley Nonprofits Laura and Jessica were also just on the podcast talking about bringing people together in a space to have those conversations, bringing in a few presenters, and I'm actually wondering has Integral Org ever done anything in person or summit style?

Mike Grogan:

Not so much in that same way, but I think that's something that's been lost in this sector over the last four or five years and that's coming out of COVID was that we lost those places to actually physically be together and to bump into each other and have those conversations with unusual suspects. I think we're pretty good about connecting with people in our worlds or our communities, in organizations that are similar to ours perhaps, but the Bull Valley Summit was a great example of where you've got all kinds of organizations from different places that could have those conversations in those sort of spur-of-the-moment type environments, and there's not many out there anymore. There's very few of those things. You've gone online, which has been fantastic for access and for Integraorg. It's been a huge explosion in our reach for the last three or four years because of that.

Mike Grogan:

But the in-person stuff first. We're not a sector-level organization. There are other groups out there that bring together the sector, so the non-profit chamber out of Calgary, ECBO out of Edmonton, some of those capacity builders across the province. We work one-on-one. We don't tend to bring people together, but one area we do bring groups together would be in our leadership training. We run a cohort for leaders, either senior leaders or soon-to-be senior leaders in the sector, a six-month cohort, one day a month, and it's those places where we'll bring maybe 24 folks together from all kinds of backgrounds, all kinds of stages of life and have some of those conversations. That's probably the convening part of our work in that medium.

Kristy Wolfe:

And all of your work is in Alberta.

Mike Grogan:

Yes, we're an Alberta-wide organization. We travel the province to all kinds of places you wouldn't normally go visit. But it's quite wonderful, it's quite neat to see the work that's being done out in community, to go into people's communities where they're living and working and playing, and to be hosted and do our work there. I mean, that's one of the best parts of this job is to sort of travel the roads and go to places you wouldn't normally go every day.

Kristy Wolfe:

Oh, that's awesome. If an organization is just hearing about Integral Org right now, what would you say would be a good starting spot for them to learn more?

Mike Grogan:

Again it comes back to let's have a conversation and this is a great part of my day and some of our staff do this as well is book a consultation. It maybe sounds like it's fancy, it's not. It's just a time to have a conversation and it can go any way you want. It can be about I've got a problem to solve, or I want more information, or I don't know what I'm doing and I'd just like a guidance to sort of send me somewhere, or I want to rant about something. I've got something on my mind. You spend a lot of time sort of listening to people and maybe not diffusing their situation but trying to understand them. So again, starting conversation, reach, as you say. Look at some of our webinars, some of our toolkits, some of our written pieces that are out there. Our job is to sort of put enough information out there. So this journey of starting and sustaining and at times, winding down a nonprofit is a little more understandable, a little more accessible.

Kristy Wolfe:

Will you talk a little bit more to that piece about winding down? That was something that came up in your presentation that I was at and I just I thought that was really interesting. There's so many nonprofits and something that we don't often think about is how those get shut down when it's time.

Mike Grogan:

Yeah, I think it's a huge area of both need in the sector. It's a big risk area for the sector. There's some great data out from the Alberta government called the Alberta Nonprofit Listings Dashboard and all it does is track the status of nonprofits. But what you see from some of that data is we start a lot of nonprofits in Alberta. I think about 1,500 new nonprofits last year in Alberta alone. Right now, probably 26,000 nonprofits operating and that's a lot. I mean, that is a lot of resources and bandwidth for your message.

Mike Grogan:

But what happens over maybe five or 10 years is what? Half those organizations are no longer in existence. Probably no different than small business in terms of the ratios. But the process of winding down a non-profit has got some tricks to it. It's got some liabilities attached to it. So we want to sort of find a way to sort of how do we do a few things? How do we help organizations do this properly?

Mike Grogan:

So most non-profits that end up not being around or they'll be called struck. They are taken off the register of active nonprofits because they didn't file for three years. The real process is to dissolve a nonprofit, go through the steps, have your board and members approve such things. The problem when most are struck in that idea of just not filing for three years is the board members are liable, in that idea of just not filing for three years is the board members are liable. They're liable for what happens in the name of that organization in those three years where this nonprofit is still in existence but no one's really running it. So there's a legal compliance and risk piece to it.

Mike Grogan:

But there's also, I think just as importantly, a stigma piece to this that starting a nonprofit is a great thing to do.

Mike Grogan:

It's about people having a dream to do something for the community and they don't always work out and that's okay.

Mike Grogan:

You've got to sort of take the idea that's not a failure, it's not that you tried something, it didn't work. Those are great things to celebrate and to bring sort of these wind down processes out of the dark and saying it's okay to be public about these things, it's okay to do it the right way. So we'll do some work in the next month or two here on a series of articles on when it's time to say goodbye. How do you know when the mech what's telling you you're not going to make it? What are the steps legally you have to do, and then how do you celebrate things? So it's not such a big stigma, perhaps to wind down a nonprofit, so a liability question for sure. I think it's a question for the sector to have kind of these zombie organizations out there floating around hundreds and hundreds of them and just I guess the idea of to continue to inspire people to start new nonprofits and do good work, the full life cycle, needs to be on the table.

Kristy Wolfe:

I love that you're talking about the life cycle and closing it down and supporting people in how to do that, because I would have absolutely no idea. So, knowing that there's organizations I can turn to, like Integral, that can help with those pieces. In your session, you also talked about organizations merging together and just the idea that there's so many organizations doing similar work. And would there be and I'm putting words in your mouth right now because you probably didn't say this but is there a way for organizations doing similar things to actually be one organization and what are your thoughts on that?

Mike Grogan:

Yeah, sometimes it comes out of what you do, and usually when you're bringing organizations together, they need to be doing similar work. Especially if they're charities, they need to have like purposes would be the definition there. So you can't just bring together an arts organization with a sports organization very easily, but organizations that are doing kind of the same work, it is an option for them, which is we haven't had a ton of mergers in alberta. There's been some big, high profile ones, but given the tens of thousands of non-profits out, there's very, very few that actually come together. A lot of times, though, what we're seeing is, I think, post COVID, there was a lot of weakness in the sector, and some of those weaknesses took a while to work their way through in the last couple of years.

Mike Grogan:

Maybe a little more of an indication or boards thinking maybe we're not going to make it, maybe we need to find a partner here to help us in a different way. Some organizations probably be a little more proactive, maybe a little stronger saying you know, I think we could grow a certain way by acquiring assets or the programs or the funding perhaps of another organization. It's not language we use a lot in nonprofits, it's more business-y. There's nothing that says we shouldn't be thinking that way. We've probably done six or seven various types of these mergers or amalgamations or wind downs in some ways, largely or mostly inspired, I think, by a change of the senior leadership level. If you've got one ceo or executive director perhaps retiring or the positions vacant, it makes a little easier to come together that way. That's one of the drivers of these things and what we're starting to see more and more of is, you know, the the funding environment for nonprofits has. It's always challenging, we know that. But looking forward the next couple of years, people thinking I'm not sure, and will I be sustainable, and do I have to make a choice that maybe a couple of years ago I wouldn't even thought about. But maybe we should start to explore that when we go down the path of mergers, quite often they don't go through.

Mike Grogan:

They are complex. There's lots of sort of twists and turns. When you think one's about to go through, it kind of goes back the other way. When you think one's dead, it comes back on the table. Because these are very human processes. People build organizations, they put their hearts and soul into them and to say that perhaps I'm going to give something up when push comes to shove is a harder choice. So they're. They're very complex, they're not for everybody, but they are an option for anybody to sort of think about. And whether it's that full merger process where you wind down organization or create a new one or just come together in a different way, where perhaps you're sharing some program work, perhaps you're sharing back office work, perhaps you're sharing staff, there's all kinds of ways to sort of bring organizations together about, kind of go on the full way to a merger.

Kristy Wolfe:

Yeah, that's a really good point and I think what you said around kind of the stigma of these kind of conversations they do need to be had and people are talking about this or possibly just needing to talk about this, so like opening that up to conversation is really important. Mike, I have one last question for you. I appreciate you talking all about Integral Oregon, sharing all of these resources with us, but is there a person or an organization that inspires you and the work that you're doing?

Mike Grogan:

The short answer is there's lots. I mean, this is probably what inspires me every day is that I get to meet online or go sit in a room or help people bring out their dreams in a strategy session. So when you do that, that's a true inspiration for me and that is the blessing of this job is you get to see great people doing great things for their communities. The organization that inspires me a lot these days is the Silver Linings Foundation.

Mike Grogan:

I'm a board member of this organization. It is an organization that works to bring residential eating sort of facilities to the citizens of Alberta. We launched our facility about a year ago and still in that kind of startup phase of getting this thing running. But just, I'm incredibly inspired by the board who have wandered this very windy path, like we talked about over the last 10 years to try different ways to bring these services to the community, which are really greatly lacking, and so to watch this group sort of pivot from running a center to building a center to, you know, supporting others do that work. I'm quite inspired by the dedication, that, that commitment to the purpose and maybe delivering that purpose in a way we hadn't thought about three or four years ago, so they inspire me in my work.

Kristy Wolfe:

Well, I've got. I'm looking them up at the same time and I have some questions for you about that, but I actually just wanted to end this with Mike. You would be an asset to any board. How many boards are you on right now?

Mike Grogan:

Very few. I'm on two right now it is, but I do. I mean, to me, being on a board is something that's important to me. So when my time comes to end at Silver Linings, I'll be looking again. And it's always a challenge to be on a board, I tell you, because you're a CEO. So I report to a board and I teach board governance every day. Take me and myself out of those worlds and to be on the board in that governance role, I have to sort of watch myself that way. So those sort of different hats I wear in governance, you know, can be an asset. It's also something you got to be, you know, attentive to, I think.

Kristy Wolfe:

That's fair. Well, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us today. I appreciate it, Mike.

Mike Grogan:

Thank you, christy. It's a pleasure to be here and thank you for what you do as well. Thank here, and thank you for what you do as well.

Kristy Wolfe:

Thank you for joining us today. The purpose of the Wolfe Pack Warriors Foundation is to give, amplify and connect. Visit our website, www. wolfepackwarriors. com to learn more about this initiative or connect with us about a registered charity that is important to you. Don't miss the next episode. Follow Give Amplify Connect on your favourite podcast platform to hear from other Alberta-based nonprofits about the work they are doing. On a final note, remember to take care of yourself and your pack.

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