We’re excited to relaunch our podcast, RKD Group: Chat, now hosted by Nipa Eason, Creative Director at RKD Group. RKD Group: Chat brings you behind the scenes of nonprofit life, shedding light on the compassion and purpose that drive the individuals solving the world’s most challenging problems.
In this episode, we chatted with Sarah Trudeau from the Wisconsin Humane Society. She started as an adoption counselor, and 17 years later, she’s now the Director of Data & Annual Fund.
She chats about:
Sarah Trudeau (00:00.512)
We've been fortunate enough to build a couple shelters, do a couple of capital campaigns in my time in fundraising. And that's been really, really cool. Just to physically see your work in action is a really beautiful thing. We're also on the cusp of another one. And that one I think is one that we are all just, we know we need it so bad for that certain community. And it's just going to be something that I think all of us are going to be just incredibly proud of.
I'm gonna back up now, over 13, almost 14 years, when I first started being a millennial, knew that was kind one of the things I came in and I was like, I really think we should focus on this because I do, like Netflix was kind of just starting and I knew that subscription and so many people my age, not lazy, we're really driven, yes, exactly, works. And so we had maybe, maybe like 50 to 60 at that point. Now we're,
We're used to that model. Yeah.
Sarah Trudeau (00:59.352)
getting really, really close to $1,500. we've slowly built it over time. We haven't been able to make a huge sizable investment where we would do face-to-face fundraising or anything like that. It's really just kind of been these smaller campaigns that just build over time.
That's incredible.
Nipa Eason (01:20.236)
Welcome to the RKD Group Chat podcast, where we bring you behind the scenes of nonprofit life. We shed light on the compassion and purpose behind the individuals solving the world's most challenging problems. I'm your host, Nipa Eason. You might remember that Kate McKinley used to host this podcast, and I'm so excited to pick up where she left off. Today, we're chatting with Sarah Trudeau from the Wisconsin Humane Society. She started as an adoption counselor, and 17 years later, she's now the director of Data and Annual Fund.
This conversation is so inspiring with ideas for your own nonprofits and an introduction to Louie. Let's chat. Sarah, so nice to meet you. Thank you for joining us here on RKD Group Chat. I have so many questions for you, but what I really wanted to know, just kind of start at the beginning really, what prompted you to even consider being a nonprofit? So you've been in a nonprofit for so long, 17 years.
Is this something that even as a kid you gravitated toward? I feel like a lot of us kind of fell into nonprofits, so I'd love to hear that story.
Yeah, for sure. No, definitely had no idea. However, I will say that I have been around nonprofits my whole life. My mom was on the, she was the president of the Midwest Epilepsy Society and we did lots of, just as a family, lots of different fundraisers and helped her with that stuff. So definitely not animal focused by any means, but we,
definitely had a lot of that mentality growing up and were very community driven. And my grandpa was a veteran and a vet. I always liked to joke that he was like a double vet. But he got he went to vet school on the GI Bill. Yeah, we were always around animals growing up and just I knew from a very young age that I really wanted to be around animals, however, I also knew
Nipa Eason (03:15.373)
Wonderful, yeah.
Sarah Trudeau (03:26.796)
I'm not good at science and so...
It's challenge a lot of us face, yeah.
And so I knew I couldn't do what my grandpa did. And so I actually just kind of stumbled into it. I'm from northern Wisconsin, and when I came down to the Milwaukee area to go to school, I definitely thought I was going to be an accountant. I thought that was my track, that's where I would go.
This is a big shift. Yeah.
And I took a part-time job at WHS and just completely and utterly fell in love. I fell in love with our mission. I fell in love with the people. And once I was done with school, I shifted from the ops side, so the animal care side, into the fundraising side about 13 years ago, not to age myself. So I had about three, three and a half years, almost four of...
Sarah Trudeau (04:31.264)
of really good in-shelter experience and then was able to shift to the fundraising side and learn that whole world as well.
That's amazing. I mean, I think you've been with Wisconsin Humane for 17 years now. I'm sure there's been a lot of change and a lot of growth. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? How much has it changed since you started?
Tremendously. I'll speak more of the fundraising side because that's the piece I know the best. When I first started, we had just acquired our second shelter, which is Ozaki. We are now up to six in a high-volume spay neuter clinic. Although it's part of one of our campuses, I also like to point out that we do have a wildlife rehabilitation center. It's one of the largest in the Midwest.
Although again, it is part of our Milwaukee campus, I do like to call it out because it is a whole other entity as well. So tremendous growth in that area. our campuses are not right next to each other. We don't have that luxury. they span, here's the state of Wisconsin, they span all the way down here, all the way up here. And they're separated by about...
depending on traffic, four hours-ish. And takes a while to get from one point to the other. So we had to quickly learn just how to systematize everything, how to scale things. was something, had you asked me 13, almost 14 years ago at this point, if I had any clue how to do, I would say absolutely not. But we learned to do that.
Sarah Trudeau (06:19.65)
And then fundraising-wise, just tremendous growth. When I first started, our entire fundraising budget was 2.4 million, and now, we're close to 14, almost 15 million. Wow. Just the annual fund side alone brings in well over that initial budget that I worked with. So that's been really, really wild to see and very fun as well.
Yeah, I mean, I feel like that kind of scaling is challenging even for companies that are like built for that. What were some of the challenges that you faced in scaling up that big?
Yeah, great question. I think the biggest thing is just getting, I'm onboarding somebody right now. And so it's been another eye-opener for me because when I think we have systems in place, somebody new comes in and they have great questions. Right. And it makes you go, yeah.
yeah, that's institutional knowledge. I just had it in my head. Yeah.
Whereas like, okay, yeah, no, we should document this stuff. We should because there's so much, you know, after so many years of being here that maybe isn't written down and isn't documented. We also had a shift just a couple of years ago that was another eye opener of our VP had left and she had been, she was kind of tenured in the organization. And that was a, it was a pretty sizable shift and also just knowing or seeing that
Sarah Trudeau (07:59.98)
Again, some of those policy or those kind of standard things that we were used to, we have to shift them. But I think another really big thing just besides all of the protocols and just the SOP type things is the database and getting those all aligned because that really was tough in the moment. Now we're...
We're on the other side of it, but tough in the moment of just getting out with those donors used to our language, used to our systems. From a direct mail side, we send a lot of direct mail. I'm really proud of it. It brings in a ton of money for our organization.
Great. Direct mail still works. Yes.
does. I mean, gosh, I think I just celebrated last year that it was our highest year ever. And I'm really proud of that number. But a lot of the organizations that we have acquired or partnered with, they were maybe sending one piece of mail a month, or I'm sorry, a year. And we sent a lot more than that. So that's...
Congratulations.
Sarah Trudeau (09:11.04)
That is, I think, a cultural shift that a lot of the smaller communities maybe weren't used to.
Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, so you guys scaled up from two to six and then two to six shelters and then also the rehab facility that you were talking about, which is huge. That's amazing. What do you feel like are maybe like shining career moments that you can highlight? Like two or three things that have happened in the last 17 years that you're just like, this was amazing. Along with like the amount of
money you guys raised last year. That's like a huge thing, right? But like any other huge moments.
Yeah, we've been fortunate enough to build a couple shelters, do a couple of capital campaigns in my time in fundraising, and that's been really, really cool. Just to physically see your work in action is a really beautiful thing. We're also on the cusp of another one, and that one I think is one that we are all just, we know we need it so bad for that.
certain community and it's just gonna be something that I think all of us are gonna be just incredibly proud of. And then also just building a team. I'm so proud of my team. I'm so grateful for them and I have five on my team, but I've seen our development team grow from two of us. Gosh, I think we're close to 24 now. So that's been tremendous growth as well and so I'm humbled to be there.
Sarah Trudeau (10:49.164)
and helping along the way, not necessarily leading those other teams, but being able to be there if they have questions or maybe there's moments where I'm like, we can maybe do this a little differently or easier if we tried this way. I always love to make people's lives easier. And if there's a better, faster way we can do it, I always love to just kind of help with that too.
Yeah, that's really amazing. I think that that's so important, that kind of growth mindset, especially in the nonprofit industry and just in this climate in general, just having this mindset of listening and hearing suggestions and trying new things. I think that's amazing. How do you encourage that in your team, just in general, like being open with ideas and bringing them to you?
That's a great question. In general, we tend to be that as an organization. I might be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure it's in all of our job descriptions. We have job descriptions and I think it's in our annual reviews. HR would not be super proud of me if we're not totally remembering.
Those happen once a year. There's no way you could remember that.
But I'm like 99 % sure we do have a bullet that does say open-mindedness and willingness to change. And that's something that just, again, as an organization, so from the top down, we are, we're constantly working through. And then it's also just on my smaller team, just something that I love to encourage. If anybody notices anything, I'm constantly asking for feedback. I think as a leader, that's something that's really important.
Sarah Trudeau (12:40.898)
Sometimes it's.
butterflies and rainbows. Sometimes it can be a little tougher to swallow, but you have to sit with that and let the ego go to the side. And know that, again, even starting from me, that we can hear feedback and know that it's coming from a good place, positive place, and it's going to help everybody in the organization, all the animals as well.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So one of the things I think you focus on is monthly giving, right? And I know that's a struggle with a lot of our nonprofits, just cracking that code. Like, how do we get people to commit in that way to our organizations? Do you have anything that you've done or tried that has been super successful or things that you're like, you know, I just wouldn't do it this way again?
I just have to giggle because we had a full team meeting this morning and we just wrapped up a monthly donor campaign and I went, these results weren't what I expected. Yeah, and it's hard when people put time and effort into it as well. So for example, the one we just wrapped, we only had nine monthly donors and that's tough. were shooting for 100.
Right. Which is always disappointing, Yeah.
Nipa Eason (14:02.727)
no, that's really short. Yeah, I'm so sorry. It's so unpredictable sometimes.
Exactly. And we are going, I feel like I've been saying this a lot over the past couple of years, but really unprecedented times. The shutdown happened the day we launched the campaign. yeah. Yeah. Not super ideal. Right. But not to our team. We had it on the calendar. We wanted to continue to try it. so maybe it didn't have any effect. Who knows?
But what our little nuggets of good that we tried to do with it was a premium, so we were giving away a t-shirt. In the past, that's done really well. However, this time it seems like it kind of fell flat. So I'm going to back up now. Over 13, almost 14 years, when I first started,
being a millennial, knew that was kind of one of the things I came in and I was like, I really think we should focus on this because I do like Netflix was kind of just starting and that I knew that subscription and so many people my age were not lazy, were really driven, the exactly it works. And so we had maybe, maybe like 50 to 60 at that point. Now we're,
We're used to that model.
Sarah Trudeau (15:28.238)
getting really, really close to 1,500. Slowly built it over time. We haven't been able to make a huge sizable investment where we would do face-to-face fundraising or anything like that. It's really just kind of been these smaller campaigns that just build over time. Most of it is digital focused, but we have done direct mail in the past and that's also been really successful. I would say our
That's incredible.
Sarah Trudeau (15:57.902)
biggest piece and we're going to be hopefully our biggest campaign and we're hopefully going to be trying it again in the near future is an unlocking challenge. So if we get X amount, we unlock a certain gift for this amount. That's been our most successful and I'm really excited to try it again in the future because we I know I think that last one we got almost 150 within a 30 day period and there was no investment from our organization whatsoever in it.
That's amazing. That's huge. And those sustainers make such a difference in the organizations, like just the cashflow, just knowing what you're going to get and being aware of what's coming in, So important. I mean, you've shared some numbers. How much of the organization's funding do you think comes from your monthly donors, if you're OK with sharing that?
Yeah, okay sharing it. However, I don't have that number offhand. would say it's not huge.
Sarah Trudeau (17:05.838)
around, it's not huge. We're inching closer to about 500,000 per year. that's, it's Absolutely. But a fraction of our overall budget, but again, that's reliable income and similar to a large event that is reliable each year.
significant yeah
Nipa Eason (17:34.914)
and where you have no overhead, right?
Right. That's one of my pitches for it always. like, it's just, all we had to do was just turn it on.
Yeah, yeah, that's incredible. So I'm going to pivot a little bit. What is your typical day like? You've said that the facilities are kind of far apart. So do you visit them? What's your standard day kind of structured around?
I always like to joke there is no standard day in animal welfare, right? Or fundraising in general. Nowadays, I tend to have a lot of meetings, a lot of virtual meetings, meeting with my team via Teams. So I would say that's good chunk of my day. I also am the one that runs a lot of the fundraising reports for our team.
for the organization, so I am often just knee deep in numbers. I don't unfortunately get a chance to visit a ton to the other shelters. I was fortunate enough with my new team member to go visit two of them two weeks ago, which was fun because the Wisconsin fall colors were.
Nipa Eason (18:51.854)
It's fall in Wisconsin. That's amazing. It's beautiful. Yeah.
I had to spend, I think I drove that week about 17 hours total that week and I was just like, most of the time that would make me very crabby, but I was like, this is so pretty, it's so pretty.
All the colors. I'm in Florida, so I don't get that as much. But I miss the Midwest for that,
Yeah. And this year they just seemed like extra. I was joking with my husband that it looked like a quilt. beautiful. Yeah. So I would say, and then also seasonal. if, obviously we're heading into one of our busiest times. so November, December, I often have to be kind of at the ready to go jump over to the shelter to help with my team that is doing data entry and
really whatever she needs me to do, whether you want me to do entry or if I'm just opening envelopes, I can do that and take a meeting wherever we need to.
Nipa Eason (19:55.662)
Yeah, sounds like a like along with the growth mindset. It's just like a problem-solving mindset, right? Like I'm just gonna be here to do the things that need to get done. And is that something that you you see commonly in your organization? okay, like you are I mean as a as working in a nonprofit, you are trying to solve these like really big problems in our world, right? And and so I feel like that's a pretty common common trait that you're gonna you're gonna see across your your organization and
How does that manifest for you, just in general with problem solving? Because I know that's, like you said, it's an unprecedented time.
It is. we, I'm not going to even speak for my own self, but as the organization, we used to have managed intake. And earlier this year, we realized we weren't necessarily meeting people where they were at with it. And so problem solving mindset, we decided to reduce that barrier. And we now have open doors whenever people need
to come to us, they can come to us. And it was a lot on my team. It will continue to probably be a lot, especially as these unprecedented times continue. But for example, Friday, this past Friday, we had 47 cats come in. Actually, in total, we had 121 cats come in. It was one of our largest days ever. But 47 coming in from one home.
And it was right towards the end of the day and the team just put their heads down and ended up staying an extra, I think, two or three hours on Halloween night when I'm sure they already had plans and it was a Friday night and they just put their head down and solved that problem and without complaining and just.
Nipa Eason (21:37.474)
from one home.
Sarah Trudeau (22:03.192)
took care of those animals and it's just like, I couldn't be more proud of the team that we have because everybody is often just, okay, we have this thing, let's solve it. We can work together and we can figure it out. And we really try as an organization to have a positive mindset. That's another one of the things that's in our reviews is assuming positive intent. And so we are always just trying our best to look at things from.
from that lens. And I think I know for my own self that has really, really helped me, even personally, sometimes, you know, like with my husband if he annoys me. I don't know if I was being positive and intentional trying to from this way.
It's good at work and it's good in life too. So talking about your day and the problem-solving mindset, what's kind of like the best part of your job and maybe what's the most challenging part?
For sure.
Sarah Trudeau (23:01.87)
Best part, of course, working with my team. I just, I really, really, really love them. They're just wonderful people and I feel grateful to know them and to work with them each day. And then also I just, because I'm not in the shelter anymore, it's such a highlight of my day to see the animal pictures, whether they are the tough cases. Yeah. We, you know,
Yeah, a gambit of tough cases, but even those ones, it's a reminder of maybe why I put in extra hours or things that we can do. like, okay, we get to help this kiddo. Yeah.
Wait, are you allowed to say what's your favorite animal or is that like not okay?
I mean, yeah, of course. Personally, my favorite animal at home. Show them. Can I show them? Yeah.
or at the shelter. Yeah, let's see him.
Sarah Trudeau (24:07.916)
I just woke him up.
look at him!
This is Louis. He came from WHS about, he's so confused now, almost nine years ago. He was brought in. The previous owner was experiencing some pretty severe health problems. I had resisted the urge for like eight years to bring home a That's a lot. I knew within, gosh, five minutes of meeting him, I'm like, this is my dog.
time.
Sarah Trudeau (24:41.622)
We connected right away.
He's beautiful. Nice to meet you, Louie.
At the shelter though, no, I couldn't pick one. I do have a, it's kind of fun. I have a folder, a picture folder. That's my screensaver and I've put all my favorite animals throughout the years in that. And so it's always fun when my screensaver comes on, because I'm like, there's Delgado, there's Scooby. And just another good reminder of the work that we're doing.
Yeah, I mean, and that's just such a nice little like, just having it kind of in front of you, not in like, just not constantly in front of you, but this little touch point like, look at all the things we're doing, right? And so yeah, your favorite, your best part of your job, and then the most challenging.
Yeah.
Sarah Trudeau (25:35.34)
Yeah, but the most challenging...
Sarah Trudeau (25:41.624)
I would say it's really, it's one, it's of course, it's hard to see animals come in in tough situations. However, after so long being in the shelter, I think I've maybe built a little bit of a thicker skin and I also know in my heart that it's really good that they came to us. Right, yeah.
At least they're here, at least we can, whatever the outcome might be, at least we can help them on their journey. I also, think, I've been feeling this more lately is fundraising wise, it's just economics tend to just be the thing that is causing me to stay awake longer than I maybe should and just worrying about, oh my gosh, if SNAP benefits cut off,
What is that going to look like to fundraising? What is that going to look like in intakes? What does this mean? And so many of those things are outside of our control, but that would be over the years when there have been moments like this. I remember the previous shutdown, we saw a huge decrease in fundraising. Those tend to be the things that are just...
Those things are really outside of our control. Those are the really tough moments because I just want to go into that problem solving mode and fix it and there isn't a magic wand to just fix this.
No, and everyone's going to be struggling with it in different ways too. So it's hard to know how to communicate that to everyone. Are you all changing anything in the way that you talk to your donors and how you approach them right now?
Sarah Trudeau (27:34.316)
Yep, we are. So the cats, for example, that we brought in, in years past, I think I would have seen our language be similar to like, holy cow, we had all of these cats come in. But we are trying really hard. Our communications and marketing team is just amazing. I think they're the best in the biz.
But they're really trying to take a holistic approach and look at everything that is going out from the smallest thing to our major donors to all of our donors, all of our communications is really trying to put a systematic lens on things and saying, you even though you might not be experiencing this in one county, that doesn't mean that the whole isn't being affected either.
And so that's been really interesting and we did that with the cats, the cat email that we just sent out and holy cow, are we getting just beautiful responses to that of like, I didn't think about it that way that this could affect that. Yeah. I think we shifted that messaging probably really like probably five-ish years ago and it's just been a really beautiful change.
to the community rally around it as well has been really cool to see.
That's amazing. I'm so glad that that's going as smoothly as it can, right? This is kind of a tough time for everyone. And so it's nice that that's at least moving in a positive direction. What do you, so having been in, I think being in a nonprofit for 17 years, which is probably longer than a lot of people have had their jobs, what do you,
Sarah Trudeau (29:18.904)
Absolutely.
Nipa Eason (29:34.538)
What kind of advice do you give to people that are coming into nonprofits for the first time to work or just in general, just good advice for nonprofits?
I'm a
think pacing yourself, you want to, it's easy to get caught in, I'll use like a mouse wheel. Yeah. And gosh, I still am guilty of that at times of like, I just want to fix all of it all at once. But we're only one human, we're only one organization. I think finding something that
is achievable and realistic and trying to solve all of these huge things all at once. And coming into an organization and listening first and instead of trying to automatically be the one that is shifting things and being the one that's trying to find the answers, that's
Gosh, that's probably my biggest. I also am just constantly reminding my team of give yourself grace, give each other grace, give the world grace. Because the work that we do is really, really hard. Compassion fatigue is real. Even in the fundraising side, if we're not necessarily the ones that are on the animal side or animal care side, it still trickles down.
Sarah Trudeau (31:12.884)
it still, it has effect on us. Seeing animals and their families go through hard times is hard. And they're, you know, they're speaking with their coworkers and being those shoulders to lean on. And so I encourage them to, you know, get off their email at five o'clock if they can. I'm guilty of not always doing that. I get that. taking vacations, you know, go outside, go for a walk, do the things that you can do to take care of yourself.
and also know that other people should do that as well. And so giving each other that grace when mistakes happen or somebody else needs to step away for a little bit of time. We're human, we need to do that.
Yeah, definitely. think when we come in, people who are working at nonprofits just tend to be more passionate about what they're doing. And so it's really hard to detach. So that's such great advice. What's your favorite way of detaching a little bit or unwinding?
For short breaks, I have to put my phone away. Otherwise, I will 100 % look at it. I had a realization probably like three years ago where I was like, man, I got to stop the doom scrolling. It's so bad. It's so bad. I am wasting way too much time on social or even just new sites and just it felt too consuming.
I'm a big avid reader. just I constantly have like three to four books going at one time. And that is that is my escapism. Longer term, I love to travel. We love to get away. We were my husband and I were just in Hawaii a couple of weeks ago. Our home was flooded this year and we were like, need we need a moment. We need to just get away. And so.
Sarah Trudeau (33:13.678)
It's nice to go far away too because you're not nearly as compelled to look at your phone. And if you can find a place that maybe doesn't have Wi-Fi, I always think that's even better too.
Yeah, detaching completely, like off the grid. I love that. Any advice for people specifically in animal care?
Compassion fatigue is real. You are going to, you're going to have really hard days. My new team member, she fortunately is coming from a situation where she was in the family services and so she understands tough days. But I told her, I promise you, this is not just playing with puppies and kittens all day.
There certainly are those days and they are amazing, but you're gonna see some tough stuff. And so when those tough events happen and you see or experience somebody going through probably the hardest day in their life, take a moment afterwards and either talk to me, talk to a coworker, maybe beat that shoulder for that coworker to lean on. If you need just quiet space, go find that. And if you need...
If you need to maybe, I know not always, and especially on the animal care side, it's not possible, but if you need to step away for longer than just a moment, do that because the things you are gonna see are tough and you're gonna experience some really challenging situations or hear about them. And so it's really important to really connect with yourself and know what you're feeling and how you're feeling.
Sarah Trudeau (35:02.798)
Somewhere. I have a feelings wheel that I always keep really close to me. Yeah. It's something that I even look at on a regular basis of like, okay, I feel kind of like, scratchy today. Like what is it that I'm actually feeling and trying to pinpoint that and really sitting with that and trying my best to work through those feelings. And so, yeah, I really think being able to connect with yourself and also
Again, just giving yourself and others some grace and breaks as times do.
That's such good advice and I love the idea of being able to put some language to how you're feeling. So yeah, if you are feeling scratchy, like how do you describe that in words that maybe other people can understand or ways that you can kind of understand how to cope with it. So I love that. Thank you so much, Sarah. This has been a really, really fun and enlightening conversation. It's been really great getting to know you.
And I look forward to talking to you again soon.
Yes, thank you so much.
Nipa Eason (36:14.936)
That was such a great conversation. And here are three takeaways I got from our chat with Sarah that I would take back to my nonprofit. First, scaling is hard for any organization. It's important to get your databases and tech stack aligned, but then also make sure everyone's on the same page so you're communicating in the same way to your donors. Also second, growth mindset. Being open to feedback and assuming positive intent is so important in an organization that's growing. Then last, make sure you take breaks.
Compassion fatigue is real and it is so important for us to learn how to take care of ourselves in those moments. All right, if you wanna chat with us, please email us at connect at rkdgroup.com. I hope I hear back from you. Either way, I'll chat with you next month.