Schmucker Advising Group

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Schmucker Advising Group We help you take what you’ve built further. We create plans that guide real action, because you’re ready for what comes next—with solutions that work.

10/03/2026

Growth happens one intentional choice at a time.

Not the one big pivot everyone talks about. Not the rebrand or the new program launch that makes headlines. Growth is quieter than that. It's the decision to finally define who owns what on your team. It's choosing to say no to an opportunity that doesn't fit, even when it's flattering. It's deciding to look honestly at a system that's been limping along instead of hoping it fixes itself.

None of those choices feel dramatic in the moment. But string enough of them together and they're the difference between an organization that's still running on what worked five years ago and one that's actually built for who it is today.

If you're ready to start making those choices with a clearer picture of where to focus first, join our free monthly workshop, When What Worked Stops Working.

Sign up at training.schmuckeradvisinggroup.com

10/02/2026

There's a version of consulting where the goal is to become indispensable. Stick around forever. Stay woven into every decision so the organization always needs one more call, one more check-in, one more invoice.

That's not how we think about this work.

Some of our favorite client projects are the ones where we solve the problem together, build real skill inside the team, put a solid plan in place, and then step back and watch the client succeed on their own. It isn't our goal to become part of your organization. Our goal is to strengthen it. To leave you with more clarity than you had before. More confidence in your team. More capability to tackle the next challenge without picking up the phone to call us.

When that happens, your organization wins, and honestly, that's the whole point.

If you're ready for that kind of help, not the kind that never leaves, come see what it looks like. Join our free monthly workshop, When What Worked Stops Working.

Sign up at training.schmuckeradvisinggroup.com

Somebody probably told her to tone it down once. More than once, honestly.The girl who cared too much is now serving cau...
10/01/2026

Somebody probably told her to tone it down once. More than once, honestly.

The girl who cared too much is now serving causes she believes in.

The girl who talked too much in every class is now teaching others why their voice matters.

The teen who was mouthy at home is now helping people say the things that need to be said.

The girl who was fiercely loyal is now building relationships that last.

The teenager who needed a plan for absolutely everything is now turning big ideas into reality.

The child who insisted on doing it herself is now the woman who built her own business.

Every trait someone tried to soften along the way turned out to be exactly what she needed to do this work.

We think a lot of nonprofit leaders have a version of this story. Come find us in the free workshop, When What Worked Stops Working. Sign up any time at training.schmuckeradvisinggroup.com

09/30/2026

It's easy to look at the nonprofits making national headlines and wonder if your organization even counts. Smaller budget. Smaller staff. No press release waiting to go out.

Here's what we want you to know. Some of the most incredible organizations we've worked with aren't close to being the biggest. They don't have hundreds of employees or seven- or eight-figure budgets, and they likely won’t make the evening news. What they're doing instead is changing lives every single day. They're serving their communities. They're solving real problems. They're creating opportunities that didn't exist before, one family and one decision at a time.

That's exactly why we choose the clients we choose. Being a community change agent is one of our core values, and we believe impact starts with the organizations we serve. When we help a nonprofit gain clarity, strengthen its leadership, or improve how it fundraises, that impact doesn't stop at the org chart. It reaches every person, every family, every community that organization touches.

Changing the world was never reserved for the biggest nonprofits. Sometimes it's happening right now, in an organization with a handful of staff, a committed board, and a mission worth fighting for.

If that's you, come spend a morning with us. Join our free monthly workshop, When What Worked Stops Working.

Sign up at training.schmuckeradvisinggroup.com

09/27/2026

Here's something I wish more nonprofit leaders knew. You don't have to have all the answers. Honestly, I don’t either.

I’ve spent years studying organization development, fundraising strategy, leadership, and change in the nonprofit world, and the longer I’m in the field, the more I’m convinced the best work starts with curiosity, not certainty.

One of the values at Schmucker Advising Group is being genuine. That means showing up as real people, not pretending to be perfect, and not pretending that change is easy, because it isn't. What we bring is experience, good questions, and a real commitment to helping organizations figure out what comes next.

Want more of this kind of straight talk? Sign up for our mailing list on our website.

www.schmuckeradvisinggroup.com

09/25/2026

Here's a problem we see regularly. Organizations start solving the problem before they've actually understood it.

Think about how many people are holding a piece of the real story inside your nonprofit. The executive director has part of it. The staff has part of it. The board has part of it. Donors have part of it. Volunteers have part of it. Even the people you serve have part of it.

When only a few of those voices get heard, it's easy to jump straight to a conclusion, and easy to be wrong. That's why listening comes before recommending anything. The issue everyone assumes needs fixing isn't always the issue actually getting in the way.

Sometimes the real answer has been sitting in a perspective nobody asked for yet.

If your organization feels stuck and you're not sure why, come get a fuller picture with us. Join our free monthly workshop, When What Worked Stops Working.

Sign up at training.schmuckeradvisinggroup.com

There are leadership habits that feel like responsibility and are actually the thing holding you back.Touching every dec...
09/24/2026

There are leadership habits that feel like responsibility and are actually the thing holding you back.

Touching every decision that comes across your desk. Carrying the whole strategy in your head instead of anywhere your team can access it. Saying yes to nearly every opportunity because turning one down feels wrong.

None of that makes you a bad leader. It usually made you a good one, early on, when the organization was small enough to run that way. The problem is the organization grew and those habits didn't shift with it.

Here's what the shift actually looks like. Building a team you trust with real ownership instead of routing everything through you. Turning what's in your head into a plan your team can actually follow. Filtering new opportunities through your real strategy instead of your gut in the moment.

The organization isn't the only thing that has to grow. Leadership has to grow with it.

We help leaders make that shift without burning out first. My DMs are always open.

09/23/2026

I hear two comments too frequently. One from a leaders, staff and board members: "We can't keep going to the same well." The other from donors who gave a generous gift, then added, "That's it. Don't come back to me."

We know why it happens. Nobody wants a donor to feel pressured. Nobody wants fundraising to feel repetitive.

Here is the reframe. The goal was never to stop going to the well. The goal is to stop treating donors like wells in the first place.

Great fundraising is not just the ask, even though it can feel that way when budget season gets desperate. Great fundraising is a year-round relationship: sharing stories, reporting real impact, saying thank you more times than feels necessary, asking for actual feedback instead of only asking for money, celebrating the generosity that makes the work possible to begin with.

When that relationship exists, the ask becomes one part of an ongoing conversation instead of the whole conversation. Donors shouldn't only hear from you when you need something, and fundraising shouldn't live in a few frantic weeks a year.

The best fundraisers build trust, gratitude, and partnership every single day.

That's exactly what we teach in our class, The Year-Round Fundraiser, running through the rest of this year.

Sign up today: yearround.schmuckeradvisinggroup.com

09/20/2026

Over the next few months, in conference rooms across the country, nonprofit teams are sitting down to build next year's budget. Line items, projected revenue, expected expenses. It's important work, and it's also not the same question as the one that actually determines whether that budget comes true.

Here's the question worth asking this fall. Are you planning next year's budget, or are you planning next year's fundraising? A budget tells you what money you need. A fundraising plan tells you how you'll actually build the relationships that generate that revenue. Too many organizations spend October and November heads-down on the budget and wait until January to think seriously about fundraising. By then, months of relationship-building time is already gone.

Your 2027 fundraising results are being shaped right now, this fall, not in January. The organizations that show up strong next year are the ones building the plan today.

Sign up for our workshop, The Year-Round Fundraiser: How Smart Leaders Keep Donors Giving All Year Long.

yearround.schmuckeradvisinggroup.com

09/19/2026

Right now, somewhere in your organization, a decision is waiting on you. A staff member has a question only you can answer. A problem landed on your desk this morning because it always does. And by the time you finally sit down tonight, you'll realize you approved, solved, or answered nearly everything that happened today.

We meet executive directors constantly who are living exactly this way. Every decision runs through them. Every problem lands on them. Every question ends up in their inbox. They're carrying the entire organization, and they're exhausted.

Here's what most of them believe is happening. A staffing issue. A time management issue. A fundraising issue that just needs one more push. But underneath it all it is usually the same thing: an organizational design issue. The organization has grown, but the way it operates hasn't grown with it. Somewhere along the way, you became the system the whole thing runs on, and when one person becomes a system, every bit of growth gets harder to carry.

If any of this sounds familiar, working harder isn't the fix. Rethinking how the organization actually operates is. That's exactly what we walk leaders through in our free monthly workshop, When What Worked Stops Working.

Sign up at training.schmuckeradvisinggroup.com

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