394: How to Lead When the World Is Watching (Deona Smith)

Episode #394: How to Lead When the World Is Watching

Episode Summary

Many capital campaigns treat the ribbon cutting as the finish line, but Deona Smith, Executive Director of the Emanuel Nine Memorial Foundation in Charleston, South Carolina, learned that the harder fundraising conversation starts after the building is funded. Smith is closing the final stretch of a $25 million campaign, $20 million of it construction, to open the Emanuel Nine Memorial on November 14, honoring the nine killed and five survivors of the 2015 shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church. She explains why donors who gave readily to construction were surprised programming needed funding too, how her fifteen member board, co-chaired by the church's sitting pastor and a longtime Charleston developer, works its own networks rather than simply overseeing from a distance, and how the Crossroads program's four pillars, acknowledgement, reconciliation, forgiveness and empowerment, now shape every dollar raised. Listeners will walk away with a sharper way to shift a campaign's narrative from remembering what happened to explaining how the organization is responding, and a board recruiting lens that favors heart and talent over convenient friendships.

About Deona

Deona Smith is Executive Director of the Emanuel Nine Memorial Foundation in Charleston, South Carolina, which is building the Emanuel Nine Memorial to honor the nine people killed and five survivors of the June 2015 shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church. Before the role, she spent years in corporate America in the brewing industry approving sponsorship requests from nonprofits, then started her own nonprofit and became known as a fundraiser in her own right. About three years ago she joined the Memorial's team to help close a fundraising gap and was later asked to become executive director, a decision she doubted until the project's architect, Michael Arad, who also designed the 9/11 Memorial in New York, told her she was the right person to lead it. She now draws on lessons from the 9/11 Memorial and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice as Charleston builds its own model for turning tragedy into programming the whole country can learn from.

Resources

• Thanks to our podcast partner, Inperium
• Deona's LinkedIn | Emanuel Nine Memorial Foundation
• The Emanuel Nine Memorial opens in Charleston on November 14, two days after this episode airs
• Book recommendation: Mother Emanuel by Kevin Sack (Pulitzer Prize finalist)
• Celebrate Nonprofit Awareness Month with the NC Center for Nonprofits!
• Follow Your Path to Nonprofit Leadership, and please leave a review!
• Learn more about the leadership resources at Armstrong McGuire: ArmstrongMcGuire.com

Your Path to Nonprofit Leadership | ArmstrongMcGuire.com

Hosted by Dr. Patton McDowell, MBA, CFRE, Senior Director of Leadership Initiatives, Armstrong McGuire & Associates, and Director of the Institute for Philanthropic Leadership