Patton McDowell ’89 is the founder and president of PMA Nonprofit Leadership. The firm provides philanthropic and organizational consulting services. Patton is also the host of the podcast Your Path to Nonprofit Leadership, a career development series focused on philanthropy. Patton shares with Catalyze host Charles McCain ’27 how interning at Special Olympics International as a Morehead-Cain Scholar launched his career in nonprofits. The alumnus also tackles key challenges facing organizations today, from fundraising dilemmas to strategic vision and effective board governance.
Patton McDowell ’89 is the founder and president of PMA Nonprofit Leadership. The firm provides philanthropic and organizational consulting services. Patton is also the host of the podcast Your Path to Nonprofit Leadership, a career development series focused on philanthropy.
Patton shares with Catalyze host Charles McCain ’27 how interning at Special Olympics International as a Morehead-Cain Scholar launched his career in nonprofits. The alumnus also tackles key challenges facing organizations today, from fundraising dilemmas to strategic vision and effective board governance.
Music credits
The episode’s intro song is by scholar Scott Hallyburton ’22, guitarist of the band South of the Soul.
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Catalyze is hosted and produced by Sarah O’Carroll for the Morehead-Cain Foundation, home of the first merit scholarship program in the United States and located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can let us know what you thought of the episode by finding us on social media @moreheadcain or you can email us at communications@moreheadcain.org.
(Charles)
Welcome to Catalyze. I’m your host, Charles McCain from the class of ’27. We have with us today Patton McDowell from the class of ’89. The alumnus is the founder and president of PMA Nonprofit Leadership. The firm provides philanthropic and organizational consulting services. Patton is also the host of the podcast, Your Path to Nonprofit Leadership, a Career Development Series focused on Philanthropy.
Patton, thank you for joining us.
(Patton)
Charles, great to be here. Thanks for having me.
(Charles)
I know you’re based in Charlotte, so what brings you to Chapel Hill today?
(Patton)
A lot of my work now is close to my hometown. I grew up in Elizabeth City, in the northeast corner of the state. Interestingly, while based in Charlotte, some of the nonprofit organizations I’m working with are in Eastern North Carolina. So, this was a perfect stop on my journey back to Charlotte.
(Charles)
Okay, great. Well, it’s amazing to have you in town. I’m looking forward to delving deeper into your expertise and learning more about your passion for nonprofit leadership in the charitable sector. So, to begin, what inspired you to focus your career on nonprofit leadership and development?
(Patton)
I’ve got to give the Morehead-Cain Foundation credit. It was one of my summer internships. In fact, I was working for Special Olympics International. At that point, I was like, this will be fun to be in Washington, D.C. for a summer. But I admittedly didn’t have career aspirations at that point. But it was a literally life-changing and certainly career-changing opportunity. I worked in the offices of the global headquarters. Eunice Kennedy-Shriver, the founder of Special Olympics and sister of President Kennedy, was still working there in 1989. This was part of my junior-senior year. That internship exposed me to opportunities in nonprofit leadership. They ended up hiring me after I finished the internship, and I spent almost ten years working for that organization.
(Charles)
Wow, okay. How do you feel like you made that transition to working for somebody else to then wanting to found PMA Nonprofit Leadership?
(Patton)
Yeah, that’s a good question. I spent another ten years after Special Olympics working in higher education. I was the Chief Fundraiser at UNC Wilmington and then Queens University in Charlotte. I had gotten a taste of Special Olympics and higher education, both public and private, and always had a sense of wanting to help nonprofit organizations as a consultant. I think my work in Special Olympics helped prepare me for that. Special Olympics North Carolina, for example, has local programs in nearly eighty-five of the 100 counties in North Carolina. So, a lot of my work was going into these communities and helping them do whatever they needed. And it got me thinking about, this is consulting. The work I was doing through Special Olympics felt like it was something that I would like to do full-time. So about fifteen years ago, I started PMA Nonprofit Leadership to continue that work, helping nonprofits through leadership development, fundraising, and strategic planning.
(Charles)
Okay. And so obviously, as someone who started a nonprofit yourself, I’m curious how nonprofit leaders can excel in planning, funding, and building a dynamic organization to stand out in such a competitive landscape.
(Patton)
It’s a great question. And in fact, that’s exactly often where organizations will come to me. Typically, fundraising is the headline for most nonprofits. They need funding to do their mission. And so, I’ll get the outreach, the call, the email, something along those lines. How can we raise more funds to do what we want to do? But a lot of the work I end up doing breaks down into different areas because they need—it’s hard to be an effective fundraising organization if you’re not clear on your strategic vision. Where are you going? I think funders want to know indeed, what is your vision for the charitable cause that you’re supporting? So, I get involved that way in helping them define their vision. What is that one-, three-, and five-year goal that they’re trying to achieve? And then that breaks down into different activities. Sometimes it’s staff development, sometimes it’s board development. Again, nonprofits rely on volunteer boards of directors, so I do a lot of board trainings and workshops for them, and helping them generally strengthen their activities so that, one, they can better educate the community about their work and then help them fund it.
(Charles)
Okay. Just on that note of trying to find ways to maximize the success of these nonprofits, I’m curious: what are some of the key challenges that these nonprofits are facing today?
(Patton)
That’s another good question. Sometimes it’s overwhelm. Often, they are doing a lot with a little... I don’t want to generalize the nonprofit sector, but often, they are less resourced than their for-profit friends, and so they’re trying to do many things, and that can lead to the risk of burnout. So, my work is trying to sharpen the activities of their staff so that they’re focused on the right things and not wearing themselves out. But I think that’s a challenge. The challenge, because of that burnout maybe, turnover in the sector is a real problem. There are a lot of great causes, but when the talent leaves a nonprofit, it makes it difficult, of course, for them to sustain the work they’re doing.
So, I focus on leadership development at three different levels. One is the emerging leader, the newer nonprofit professional, helping them get settled and successful, and then helping nonprofit leaders as they move through their mid-career and then ultimately into executive leadership. But at every level, I think the challenge to your question is the risk of burnout. And so, if they burn out, we lose them. That hurts their organization.
(Charles)
Yeah, totally understandable. And with that, so how do you feel, or what are the specific initiatives you feel PMA takes to tackle these obstacles and challenges they’re facing?
(Patton)
Often, it’s strategic networking because I think a lot of nonprofit leaders feel that it’s a lonely world for them. They feel isolated, in addition to being overwhelmed sometimes by the work that they’re doing. And so, a lot of our work is helping connect them to like-minded individuals, helping them find peer support. I have a Mastermind Leadership Program, which has allowed me to bring together nonprofit leaders from all over the country. And so, it’s a virtual gathering, but it’s amazing when you put good people, talented, motivated people into a virtual setting, good things happen, and they can share their challenges. They’re able to lean on each for resources and ideas. That, I think, is in a small part helping sustain them, maybe keeping them from jumping out of an organization where they just feel overwhelmed. Also, just providing them resources. Like you mentioned earlier, I have enjoyed a podcast that allows me to talk to nonprofit leaders all over the world. And so, in turn, I hope that becomes a resource for those that are listening to learn from the experience of nonprofit leaders and experts. And then I’m involved in several training programs, fundraising-related, board development-related. But those are the three categories of work we do: resource material, individual training, and then organizational consulting.
(Charles)
Interesting. And speaking of working with different leaders around the world, I’m just curious, how do you feel like different places around the world have different strategies towards nonprofits? And where do you feel like you’ve seen been most effective and some things that haven’t worked as well?
(Patton)
The good news is I think there are more similarities than differences. Nonprofit leaders that I’ve spoken with in any sector, in any community, anywhere in the world, they have a passion for doing good, and they’re just trying to do it in an effective and efficient manner. There are differences within the philanthropic support networks by country. Charitable giving as a philosophy and as a legal process is different. So that’s where I’ve talked to folks from different continents, literally, and they’re struggling with just one, availability of philanthropy, and then the different rules and regulations behind it. But because of the virtual connection around the world, where I’ve seen even more successes, no matter where they are, they can appeal to funding anywhere else in the world. And so, they’re not just local. In fact, that’s where the most successful nonprofits around the world have—they’ve maximized their digital presence. And if you set up your website effectively and make that call to action, you can generate funding, and that’s where I’ve seen success.
(Charles)
Thank you so much. And on the note of worldwide communication, I’d like to explore more about how you share these insights with a broader audience. So, I know your organization started in 2009, but you began your podcast, Your Path to Nonprofit Leadership in 2019. Could you tell us more about the inspiration behind starting that podcast?
(Patton)
All right. I got to give credit, Charles, to my daughter, Lauren, who graduated from college in 2019. She, of course, grew up in the work that I did and knew of our firm and said, “You know what? Maybe a podcast would be a media format that we could leverage.” She knew I like to talk a lot, so maybe that was a call out to if I’m enjoying the conversations that I’m having anyway, why not put that into a podcast format? We started literally, like, all right, let’s just do five episodes and just try to see if we can survive. But once we started the streak. It’s funny how once you get a weekly cadence, which we have now, you don’t want to break it. We started on National Philanthropy Day back in 2019 and have maintained a Thursday release ever since. I must confess, there has been some late Wednesday night work to get it out Thursday morning. But fortunately, we have gotten enthusiasm from our audience and the people we’ve been able to speak to. Hopefully, I’m intentional or at least trying to be, what takeaways can each conversation lead to for someone who’s a current nonprofit leader or they want to be? And so, I try to generate conversations around those themes. As in, what did you learn along the way as you moved into nonprofit leadership, and what will that help or how will that help those that are listening?
(Charles)
And I’m curious, do you have a favorite episode in all the episodes you have?
(Patton)
I guess some of the milestone episodes, naturally, you feel proud about. The 100th episode, I had a friend of mine that worked, his name is Chris Delisio. He works at Ohio State University. So, he co-hosted the 100th. But it allowed us to talk about some of the, in essence, the greatest hits of the first 100 episodes. It was something I was certainly proud of because we could say, “You know what? We’ve had some great conversations about those key things you and I have already talked about: fundraising advice, strategic planning advice, building your board, all the things and some of the struggles that episode lifted up.” But just recently, we had our 250th episode, and so that similarly allowed us to reflect on some of the conversations we’ve had. But it’d be hard to pick beyond that. It’s like choosing your favorite kid. You love your children, all of them. I’ve been very fortunate to have great guests throughout.
(Charles)
Well, congratulations on the 250 episodes. I imagine, looking back five years, that’s just such an accomplishment to have.
I’m curious how you go about selecting your guests, but also the theme or topic for the podcast.
(Patton)
Yeah, it’s a great question. Fortunately, early on, I started with just my own network, work in higher education, work at Special Olympics, work in the various nonprofit communities. Since then, we’ve gotten quite a few, I guess, requests to be guests. It’s interesting. There’s a whole market now, I think, for podcast guesting. I get emails almost daily from folks saying, “Hey, we think so and so would be a great guest,” and some indeed are. But now it’s been, as much as anything, a referral business. In other words, when I talk to a nonprofit leader from Australia, I will ask her, “Who else do you think would lend their voice to nonprofit leadership there?” We have been able to generate a list of folks that, hopefully, we will get on the podcast. But right now, we’re able to stay ahead six to eight weeks because of guests that often come as referrals from others, and then also just folks that I’ve worked with. We’ve worked with a couple of hundred organizations as a firm, and so it gives me a wonderful resource list to go to and talk to leaders that have inspired me and see if they’ll join me on the podcast.
(Charles)
That’s amazing. Speaking of your podcast, in a recent episode with Lance Kawaguchi, you discussed the issue of nonprofits focusing on perceived community needs rather than the actual needs of a community. When you encounter this situation in a struggling nonprofit, how do you guide them in adjusting their mission without jeopardizing the founder’s vision or drastically altering their organizational structure?
(Patton)
Yeah, that is a challenge. Lance nailed it in terms of some of the things he has dealt with because he inherited an organization serving the cancer community but was struggling. I think a lot of it starts with clear and effective communication. I think a lot of organizations, because they are immersed in it, assume that their communities understand what they do. I learned it even in Special Olympics, because a lot of people have maybe a positive feeling about your organization, but they don’t fully appreciate all that you do. For Special Olympics, it was like, “Oh, I guess that’s just a once-a-year track meet,” and they didn’t realize the depth and breadth of the programming. We’re doing thirty Olympic-style sports. We’re year-round. We’re helping all ages. Lance was dealing with some of the same things where people didn’t appreciate what he was doing, but he reframed it. He, I think, “sharpened his vision” is the phrase I use, and Mrs. Shriver used it thirty-some years ago, identifying how can we effectively educate those that we work with of the need and then inspire them with we’re going to do something about it. I think a lot of times I look at nonprofit organizations, I see lots of messaging, but often, it becomes cluttered. In other words, too many good messages, even if they’re all good, can become noise. Having a real focus on clarity is where I think it starts. Then that leads to things like raising more money, but you must start with the messaging, and Lance is a great example of that.
(Charles)
Thank you. How do you go about finding the true needs of the community?
(Patton)
Conversations, and often, this is a chance for your board of directors to use their ambassador role for you. I run into a lot of that as a challenge where the nonprofit leader will tell me, “Yeah, my board, they’re either disengaged or they’re micromanaging me, but they’re not being effective.” And so, turning your board members into more effective ambassadors, a lot of the workshops I do are on exactly that point. And so, their ability to get into the community and have conversations does help determine what the needs are, and then also helps you get your message in front of the key leaders in your community. So, board engagement, I think, is a critical element that can help you with conversations and messaging in both directions.
(Charles)
Thank you. Could you share maybe a case study or success story that exemplifies the impact PMA can have on an organization’s success, highlighting the importance of effective leadership and fundraising in the nonprofit sector?
(Patton)
Yeah. In fact, one that I visited with this week is in Kinston, North Carolina. The gentleman named Chris Jenkins started an organization called Hope Restorations. It’s fantastic. And it has addressed multiple issues in that community, to your earlier question. The issues were one, folks that are coming out of incarceration or drug rehabilitation, dealing with challenges, having a difficult time getting back into the workforce. Chris started Hope Restorations, and I was able to work with him early on about, all right, how do we provide training, workforce development for these individuals who are struggling to get back on their feet? He taught them construction skills. He took the construction skills and allowed these, mostly men at first. Now, there are men and women now in the program. What they do is they rehabilitate homes that have fallen into disrepair in Lenoir County or Kinston. In other words, these homes have become an eyesore in their neighborhoods. Chris said, “You know what? Maybe we can achieve multiple goals. I can train these men and help them get into paying jobs. We can also improve neighborhoods.” Then the third, the triple crown of this organization, is he’s providing affordable rental properties, which is a huge challenge in many communities. For folks who are just trying to get by, they can’t find good places, certainly affordable places, to live. He’s training individuals, he’s improving neighborhoods, and now he’s providing affordable rental properties. It’s been a fantastic example, and Chris deserves all the credit, but he’s rallied his community and his board, and he’s now getting funding and attention from throughout the region because other counties nearby his are seeing, that triple crown of success is something we want as well.
(Charles)
That’s amazing. To shift gears a bit, I noticed that in 2019, you wrote a book with the same title as your podcast, Your Path to Nonprofit Leadership. Why did you decide to write this book, and what unique insights did you hope to share that differ from what you share in your podcast?
(Patton)
That’s a great question, Charles. It’s one of those things I think a lot of people—we all have a book in our head. I think you all can agree, and probably your listeners can as well. I had something in my head for years. The book allowed me to put what I had been teaching and coaching for twenty-some years into print. It occurred to me as I was preparing to put the book together, there were seven essential steps, I thought, along the path to nonprofit leadership. And so that became the framework for the book. And some of these things are certainly familiar in terms of career development in any sector. But I thought it was a unique combination of these seven steps to allow nonprofit leaders or aspiring nonprofit leaders to go through a program, if you will, to get better. And I built the Mastermind Program that I described to you earlier using those same steps, if you will, they become modules for that training program. And it still allows for an individual to design something unique to them. So, it’s not so formulaic that there’s one size fits all. But the book allowed me to put together lessons I’ve learned through my leadership journey, and maybe more importantly, what I’ve learned working with people, and then hopefully giving them a formula, I talk about what can you do in the next twelve months? So, it’s not just a far off, someday I’m going to be ready to be a nonprofit leader. I’m like, all right, let’s talk about what you can do now to sharpen your vision personally, to build your strategic network, to curate the knowledge you need to advance. And hopefully, it is helpful, but it was fun to put it together. It was fun to get it over with, too, though, right? It’s nice to be done, but that was the basis of the book.
(Charles)
And how did you go about narrowing to just seven steps with it being such probably a complicated process?
(Patton)
I went back and forth. I started with five early in my consulting career and then added and subtracted content. So, over the last fifteen years of my consulting practice, it just seemed to land comfortably with seven. That’s what I stuck with. But I had been using that formula in a lot of the coaching and teaching I did and thought, it makes sense. And there was a rhythm to that. And that’s how I ended up with seven.
(Charles)
Thank you. And to shift gears one last time, I’m curious. I know you talked earlier about the internship you were able to have, but how do you feel like Morehead-Cain, whether it was the community, the values, shaped your path towards nonprofit leadership?
(Patton)
Yeah, I can’t begin to overstate that because like I said, if it weren’t for the Morehead-Cain opportunity and particularly the internship and the summer experiences, I don’t know what I would be doing. I was convinced at that part in my life I wanted to be a high school basketball coach, believe it or not. I was obsessed. Maybe it was my failed attempts as an athlete to then go into coaching. And so literally that summer, I thought, all right, well, I was an education major here at Carolina, and so I literally thought I’d be an English teacher, basketball coach. And so, the opportunity through the internship to learn about a career opportunity like Special Olympics changed my life and showed me that I think I had viewed mistakenly the nonprofit sector as a feel-good volunteer role. Yeah, you can be an intern, but it’s not really a career option, but it totally changed my thinking. It’s like, wow, this is a complex global organization that has professional opportunities. That became the career-defining path for me, and that’s why I’ll forever be grateful for Morehead-Cain for that.
(Charles)
Thank you. What advice do you have for current scholars who are interested in making a difference in the nonprofit sector or creating their own nonprofit organization themselves?
(Patton)
Volunteer with organizations for which you have passion. I emphasize that because there are a lot of well-intentioned scholars and others that I’ve spoken with who want to jump to start a nonprofit. I don’t want to diminish that enthusiasm, but my suggestion-advice would learn about others in the space that you’re considering. If you’re starting a healthcare nonprofit, well, maybe you should volunteer with some healthcare nonprofits in your community. Understand, volunteer. You could even serve on their board, help fundraise for them, help with an event. But my caution is jumping too quickly into starting your own and then perhaps competing with other good causes. Now, you may, through your research and experience, find, you know what, nobody is doing what I think needs to be done. Then good for you. Let’s start a nonprofit. I’ve worked with organizations with that mentality. But my advice would be, do your homework, research organizations like that one you’re pondering, because then that will help improve, I guess, your own plan when you do indeed start one yourself.
(Charles)
And speaking of that competitive landscape, have you ever seen nonprofit organizations fighting for the same cause? Have you ever encouraged them to merge, and what does that look like?
(Patton)
It’s a great question. In fact, a lot of funders are asking that question. Those who have the means to invest in nonprofits must answer the question. We’ve got twenty good causes on our desk asking us for money, and four of them are doing the exact same thing in our community. You risk funders saying, “You know what? I like what you’re saying, Charles, but there are three other organizations also doing that. Have you considered whether you might collaborate with them?” Funders like collaboration. Often, they will invest in collaboration. So, my work, counseling or coaching an organization is, yes, always look for collaborative opportunities because it will, I think, help your funding opportunities. Otherwise, there’s not enough to go around, and you risk not fully maximizing your good cause because you’re spread too thin.
(Charles)
And is the collaboration something that you see nonprofit leaders willing to do, or is it something they struggle to do?
(Patton)
It’s a great question. It makes sense on paper in many cases, but often when I broach that conversation, they’re like, “Yeah, I’d be willing to merge with that other organization across town, but if we do it my way.” Then you go talk to the other organization across town, they’re like, “Well, we would merge with them, but we do it better than they do.” You end up with the inevitable just personality conflicts. That has been my experience. Everyone agrees on paper we should collaborate, but it’s hard, especially when you have founders who put their heart and soul into starting their own nonprofit. Hard for them to give it up and merge with somebody else.
(Charles)
Yeah, I believe it. One of my final questions is, in my experience with Morehead-Cain Scholars, I’ve noticed a common theme of pursuing a nonlinear path, much like your journey from higher education to working with Special Olympic groups and now doing nonprofit consulting. And so, how do you believe these varied roles and decisions have shaped your career? And what advice do you have for others navigating a nonlinear path in seeking direction?
(Patton)
Well, I’m a big fan of the nonlinear path, as you might guess, because each of my experiences has allowed me to experience a diversity of thought and perspective and opportunity and strengthened, I think, ultimately, my own consulting practice. Now that I have children in a similar early graduate stage, I’m encouraging them to do the same thing. There’s a pressure sometimes, I think, on the emerging leader generation. I got to have it all figured out. My career at twenty-four is necessarily going to be the one that I’m going to take all the way to the finish line, and I don’t think that’s the case. My advice is to experience different sectors, different opportunities, professions. I hope, regardless of the professional track any of the Morehead-Cain Scholars take, I hope they’ll be involved in their nonprofit community. The nonprofit community needs talent that Morehead-Cain Scholars can bring. Maybe it’s as a volunteer or as a board member. But my advice would be it’s also an important way to get to know your community through the lens of nonprofit organizations.
(Charles)
That’s great advice. Thank you. Just to wrap up, I’d love to hear about your favorite memory from your time as a Morehead-Cain Scholar at Chapel Hill.
(Patton)
I must go back to the summer experiences. Now, again, I know I should speak to the academic experience here in Chapel Hill, which I guess maybe some classes I was more engaged than others, I will be the first to admit. But again, the summer experiences, the memories that I still have, the friends I still talk to. I was on the West Coast in Palo Alto for what was then the law enforcement opportunity, social sector. That was a wonderful summer. Of course, I’ve talked about the Special Olympics experience in D.C. I also had an experience with Hallmark Cards in St. Louis, which, again, as I reflect on that, I was like, Hallmark Cards. But again, it was fascinating. You can learn so much from any of these experiences. For me, those experiences. Then one, my singular athletic, I guess, claim to fame: I made the JV basketball team when Roy Williams was here the first time. That was the opportunity to work with Coach Williams. He left the next year for Kansas in his Kansas tenure before coming back, of course, to Chapel Hill. But that experience, while he ran the dickens out of me, that’s a phrase Coach Williams often used. He’s such a nice guy, but people don’t realize that he is an intense coach. I experienced it firsthand. Maybe that told me that basketball was not going to be my path forward, but a great memory, nonetheless.
(Charles)
I can’t think of something better than that to play for Coach Williams. That’s amazing. But that’s all for today. So, thank you so much for joining us. It’s been a pleasure to hear about your life and your career. I’m inspired by the work you’ve done and just want to say congratulations for all you’ve done. And thank you for being here today.
(Patton)
Charles, it’s a pleasure. Thank you for being part of this.
(Charles)
Thank you for listening to Catalyze. I’m Charles McCain from the class of ’27, and that was Dr. Patton McDowell from the class of ’89, founder and president of PMA Nonprofit Leadership. You can let us know what you thought of this episode by emailing us at communications@moreheadcain.org or by finding us on social media @moreheadcain.