Athena, Holly Smithson - Sharing proven philosophies on how to lead a successful business entity

In this episode of The Business of Non-Profits, we speak with Holly Smithson, CEO of Athena, about approaching a non-profit as a business endeavor. She’ll speak candidly about what works for her and what sharing proven philosophies to lead a successful business entity.

 

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00:29 Stacey Lund:

Hello and welcome back to the Business of nonprofits. With me today is Holly Smithson, the CEO of Athena. Athena is an organization with a mission to advance women in STEM leadership to 1 million strong by 2030. Holly is a voracious supporter of strong business skills within nonprofits, and we are so happy to speak with her today. Holly, thanks for joining us.

00:53 Holly Smithson:

Well, thank you, Stacey. I'm excited to be here. And congratulations on the launch of your new podcast.

01:01 Stacey Lund:

Thank you. Holly, you've had leadership roles like Athena is not your first rodeo, so talk to us a little bit about your leadership at other nonprofits and kind of the journey that you think nonprofit leadership takes. You've had an evolution, so talk a little bit about that.

01:15 Holly Smithson:

Yeah, I've been really fortunate here in the great state of California, where there's a high volume of advocacy groups and sort of community groups that bond together in pursuit of a common agenda. And I have been fortunate enough to lead a couple of those in the space of life sciences, clean technology, and now women's leadership, specifically in the fields of STEM. And each of those organizations have a pretty successful track record. We know that on average, 90% of nonprofits will fail within their first few years, in large part because there's not a strategic plan or there's just some leadership deficiencies. So been really blessed and really fortunate to have these opportunities and these platforms to support these industry clusters.

02:03 Stacey Lund:

That's amazing. So would you say and I mean, you're in an organization now that really is teaching leadership in a lot of ways, right? Harnessing your inner leadership skills is your evolution, or do you feel like nonprofit leadership and the focus on strategy and business skills, do you feel like that's kind of a tandem path to teaching women in STEM how to be better leaders? Is it the same trajectory that nonprofit leaders just don't really realize kind of what skills they need? Or what do you think the deficiency is?

02:38 Holly Smithson:

I like your question, and here's why. Because we in the nonprofit industry for a long time had this false narrative that we want to show that we have spent very little of your donor money on overhead when all that does is perpetuate this race to the bottom mentality. And they know that it takes money to make money. So, the idea that you are going to communicate a business philosophy that you can spend the very least amount of money to drive an impact. When in fact, what you actually need to do is take some of the donor’s money and put it back into the mission. Into the organization. Into technology. Into talent development. Professional development. And so that's why you see these really nasty numbers where 90% of these nonprofits fail in the first few years. What donors really want is what is the impact based on your budget.

03:36 Stacey Lund:

Talk a little bit more about that where you mentioned tools and technology. You're going to take your donor dollars and you're going to bolster your infrastructure. about the strategy behind that, and then about data, because I know you love data, and the way to show results is through measurement. And I think it's hard when you have a mission, and you love the mission to even kind of put KPIs in place for success.

04:00 Holly Smithson:

For my mindset and because I professionally grew up working on Capitol Hill, working in public policy where accountability is scammed. And so, when I came out to California 15 years ago, my goal and my desire were to do the exact opposite of what they do in the federal government, I wanted to be a part of an organization that had an impact, that actually had outcomes that were measurable, and where everybody was on the same page, and everybody was rowing in the same direction. And we're guided by a set of data that informs us whether we're going in the right direction, whether we're going with the right people, and have the right tools in place to achieve success. And what I found was, obviously, the big data movement occurred within the last 20 years. S