WHAT THE FUNDRAISING
49: Exploring Ethical, Community-Based Changemaking While the World Watches with Maggie Doyne
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“Find your partners. Find your people. Find folks on the ground. Because the world doesn’t need us all to go out there to try to make a change. It needs a community lifting itself up.”
– Maggie Doyne
Episode #49
Overview
In this episode of What the Fundraising Podcast…
What does it look like to use our power and privilege for good? In some cases it involves us speaking out, in others it involves us getting quiet and listening. How do you know what to do when?
Maggie Doyne and I explore all of this and more in this week’s episode of What the Fundraising. Maggie has been hailed as CNN Hero of the Year and criticized for perpetuating the white savior narrative, and she has something to say about both. As many people know, at 19 years old, Maggie set off on a gap year that ultimately led her to Co-Found BlinkNow and personally adopt almost 60 Nepalese children. Her story is complicated, inspiring, nuanced, beautiful, and painful. And through her new book, “Between the Mountain and Sky: A Mother’s Story of Love, Loss, Healing, and Hope” Maggie lets us walk with her through so many of the ups and downs of her journey.
In this episode, Maggie and I untangle some of the duality that Maggie and BlinkNow experienced when the media would cover Maggie’s inspiring story. For example, opportunities and funding for the nonprofit were realized because Maggie was from a suburban town in New Jersey, while at the same time the media narrative about the organization would often leave out the most important part – that the organization was primarily driven by local leadership and solutions from inside the local community. While Maggie was attempting to partner with the local community in the most humble and ethical way, the media clickbait stories about her work caused harm and, as she reflects back, that is something she wishes she had corrected and spoken up more about at the moment.
Maggie talks about her commitment to using her whiteness as an ally, to elevate the voices and the stories around her and not be the center of the story. And in this conversation, we explore the learning journey that has led to her stepping back in this way. We often approach conversations like this in binary ways – good/bad, right/wrong, ethical/unethical but what this conversation creates is an opening for more curiosity, wonder, learning, and listening.
We talk about how the nonprofit sector as a whole can do better, starting with a commitment to learning from one another. We also discuss the power of vulnerability as a teacher and storytelling as a tool; why it’s important to deploy an inside-out approach that honors the people who know best, the ones on the ground. And, as Maggie reminds us, “We all need to get better. And the answer to getting better at what we do and learning is each other. We are so lucky to be alive in a time where teachers are everywhere.”
We couldn’t agree more. And if we don’t take on the toughest, most uncomfortable issues the nonprofit sector as a whole cannot progress. Listen now to learn more about Maggie’s story, BlinkNow, and grapple with some of the biggest questions about how to participate in ethical community-based change-making.
If you’d like to support BlinkNow’s work in Nepal, please consider getting involved with one of their many amazing donor opportunities. You can also visit your favorite independent bookstore or click here to purchase a copy of “Between the Mountain and Sky: A Mother’s Story of Love, Loss, Healing, and Hope.”
Many thanks to our sponsor, Learn Grant Writing, an online learning experience that makes grant writing approachable and fun. If you want to learn more about how to align your fundraising and grant writing practices – watch a FREE fireside chat with me and the Meredith → learngrantwriting.com/mallory

















EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
- (00:35) – Maggie shares the origin story and mission of BlinkNow, a nonprofit foundation that serves an ever-growing, ever-inspiring community in Surkhet, Nepal.
- (01:59) – Maggie’s new book: "Between the Mountain and Sky: A Mother's Story of Love, Loss, Healing, and Hope," the tale of a young outsider navigating a foreign culture and the challenge to bring about change in an ethical, community-based way.
- (03:57) – Maggie reflects on the upsides and downsides of tremendous media coverage in top publications (resources, exposure), which has also fostered a surface-level understanding that became in some ways both self-conscious and self-limiting.
- (08:41) – Can Maggie offer aspiring change-makers advice?
- Understand complex problems in the context of local history, talents, and issues.
- Leverage and work with partners who are on the ground, already brainstorming solutions.
- Lead with curiosity and questions.
- Commit to long-term involvement – that outlasts good intentions.
- Create operations and organizational structures that are integral and work.
- (11:48) – The nonprofit sector isn’t always great about openly, honestly sharing experiences. Maggie looks to people like Mallory as connectors and storytellers.
- (13:45) – Popularity contests and social media curation designed to “beat out” the competition is corrosive to the larger goals of nonprofits, which need to work in collaboration.
- (16:55) – About the hazards of placing nonprofit leaders on a pedestal, where they are not only isolated but unable to share their failings and vulnerability so others can learn.
- (18:59) – The importance of getting candid about some of the deeper issues that impact the long-term nonprofit success and require nuanced understanding, including:
- The role of diplomacy and foreign aid dollars.
- The difference between nonprofits and NGOs.
- Structural and operational realities on the ground.
- (20:50) – As her organization has evolved and matured, so has Maggie. She considers some of the ways in which they’ve both grown:
- Youth afforded a certain bravado, no fear of failure. Maggie has worked hard not to change or surrender that lens.
- Education from within her Nepalese community broadened and deepened Maggie’s understanding.
- Books and mentors, including a board of directors with legal and financial skills, showed her a path forward. All it required was Maggie’s willingness to be led.
- Over time Maggie has come to better differentiate between the battles that are hers to wage and those that rightfully must find resolution from within the community and culture.
- (26:24) – How Maggie has negotiated the dynamics between donors and the communities they seek to serve. Having a conduit is very helpful, but too often that trusted advisor can tend to be homogenous and exclusive.
- (29:00) – Anti-racism training has a role to play in bringing about genuinely diverse partnerships that will shift the power of gatekeeping and who can open the gates.
- (33:25) – The desire for immediacy and drive to cement resources can sometimes overshadow the real work: enfranchising changemakers from within and addressing honestly the “rules” that work against long-term goals.
- (37:38) – One of the primary reasons BlinkNow is still vibrant, says Maggie, is an ongoing focus on integrity and transparency, stepping back when values are out of alignment or there are things to learn.
- (40:05) – Perfection versus a constant learning curve: Maggie threw the former out because it was impossible to maintain honesty and practically.
- (41:52) – Maggie turns the tables, asking Mallory what observations she’s had about BlinkNow's trajectory over the years. The truth? Her admiration has extended to feelings of comparison and despair, envy based on performative metrics and perceptions.
- (45:20) – Comparing Notes: Maggie calls on people in the nonprofit sector to more openly share what works and doesn’t work, useful hacks, and learning resources.
- (48:09) – The need for feedback. Maggie believes in surrounding herself with people who will tell the hard truths and unapologetically disagree. It strengthens the organization.
- (49:48) – Mallory shares resources that she finds helpful (links below) to doing the work of DEI but ultimately it often comes down to getting quiet, listening to her own instincts – or getting called out and challenged to question herself.
- (53:10) – Mallory promos "Between the Mountain and Sky's" many compelling dimensions, including experiences of grief, falling in love, growth, and setbacks both personal and professional.
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TIPS AND TOOLS TO IMPLEMENT TODAY
- Data and data-driven decision-making are powerfully persuasive tools when it comes to breaking old patterns or “analysis paralysis.”
- Don’t shy away from discomfort, which (unlike anxiety) is an invitation to try something new and exciting.
- Throw out the old tiered formulas for donor recognition, replacing them with behavior-based thank-you practices
- Not enough people are seeing themselves in the donor bases of large charitable organizations, which often lack diversity and tend not to value smaller donors.
- Giving Experience Elements to Consider:
- Is your platform user-friendly?
- Do you regularly communicate back to donors the direct, specific impacts their generosity yields?
- Is your donor base and staff as diverse as your potential pool of contributors and beneficiaries?
- Don’t forget your first-time donors – whatever the size of their check. A stunning 80% don’t repeat and it’s often for lack of personal outreach.
- Get the “little things” (salutations, name spellings, thank-you notes) right. They matter!
FAVORITE QUOTES
- “Find your partners. Find your people. Find folks on the ground. Because the world doesn’t need us all to go out there to try to make a change. It needs a community lifting itself up.” - Maggie Doyne
- “You won’t succeed if you’re an outsider just dropping in to say, ‘Here’s how we’re going to do things.’ ” - Maggie Doyne
- “If we’re actually going to solve big, global problems, how on earth can we expect that to happen without transparency around the mistakes that we’re making?” - Mallory Erickson
- “We like to make snap judgments and talk about things we don’t know about when (we need to) dig deeper and ask, ‘Where is this issue coming from? ” - Maggie Doyne
- “People want to give where they can trust, where they know that their dollar matters ... (BlinkNow donors) believed and invested in me because I looked like them. And therein lies the problem and why there isn’t enough diversity at the table.” - Maggie Doyne
- “We need to evolve in the anti-racism work where we can get (community members) at the table from the very beginning … because the stories that really need are theirs.” - Maggie Doyne
- “We have to get better about our own communications and drawing lines and boundaries around media and how we’re portrayed and language, because language matters.” - Maggie Doyne
- “If we can be more honest about (the rules and what’s not working) we’re actually going to run much better organizations and likely solve the problems we haven’t been solving.” - Mallory Erickson
- “We’ve gotten this far by sharing all our vulnerabilities, sharing our failings. We’re a small nonprofit and what we’ve learned is that when you tell the truth, people come along for the ride. We don’t give people enough credit.” - Maggie Doyne
- “We all need to get better. And the answer to getting better at what we do and learning is each other … coming from a place of vulnerability, letting the nonprofit armor down.” - Maggie Doyne
- “It’s a comparison culture, an Instagram world. As women we need to fight that and learn from, applaud and uplift each other.” - Maggie Doyne
- “None of us have this figured out. If we did, we wouldn’t have 153 million children living in poverty ... We need accountability and truth-tellers.” - Maggie Doyne
- “We are so lucky to be alive in a time where teachers are everywhere – and to walk the earth with these people. Find them. Make time to listen.” - Maggie Doyne
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Get to know BlinkNow:
The BlinkNow Foundation’s mission is to provide an education and a loving, caring home for orphaned, impoverished, and at-risk children. We also provide community outreach to reduce poverty, empower women, improve health, and encourage sustainability and social justice. The Foundation fulfills its mission by providing financial support and management oversight to the Children’s Home and Kopila Valley School in Surkhet, Nepal.
Click here to learn more about Maggie and her work at www.blinknow.org



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- CEO & Creator of the Power Partners FormulaTM
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- Over 15 years working in nonprofits (managing director and ED of multiple fast-growth organizations)


MALLORY ERICKSON
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