I raised over a million dollars for a nonprofit, and then I quit…

From the outside, I appeared to be a successful fundraising professional. Over 3 years, I had grown a culturally-specific nonprofit’s budget by 900% and set them up for a successful capital campaign.

I should have felt proud, but the truth was that I was fed up. I found myself lying on my sister's living room floor in the 105° Albuquerque heat, with a semi-functional swamp cooler, staring at the ceiling and assessing my life choices.

The nonprofit grew rapidly during my time there. What did not keep up with the growth were the operations and systems.

I found myself wearing too many hats. I was the fundraiser, operations director, project manager, supervisor, HR coordinator, hiring manager, communications, custodian, interim-executive director (at times), and so much more.

I was overwhelmed and felt like I was playing whac-a-mole. I wasn’t eating enough, drinking too much coffee, and feeling guilty for working weekends and evenings. Eventually my health began to suffer.

I needed to spend my energy on strategy, not admin work. But I didn’t have the time or the focus.

While staring at the ceiling, I realized two things:

• I’m skilled at listening to others’ visions and developing roadmaps to bring dreams to reality.

• The absence of systems is not liberatory.

During that month I spent in Albuquerque, enjoying evenings in the park, Colombian dinners cooked by my now brother-in-law, and amusingly watching road runners dash back and forth, I realized I wanted to create systems that sustain people. I would be the dream operational specialist I wish I had had to make the nonprofit’s growth sustainable.