Today I’m fortunate to be interviewing Rachel Brookhart, former Marketing & Communications Manager at the Center for Nonprofit Management in Los Angeles, California and author of Start Your Engines: Nonprofit Management Made Simple, out now.
GG Society: Hi Rachel, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Tell us a little about yourself and your background.
Brookhart: I love learning, tackling problems, and in general looking at things and asking, “How can we improve on this?” I’ve been in the nonprofit sector for almost a decade, focusing on nonprofit management. I enjoy doing purpose-driven work, although I don’t believe that 501(c)(3) organizations are the only answer.
As a more general background, I grew up in West Virginia, but have been in LA for 12 years. I have a BA in Art History from Duquesne University and an MA in Nonprofit Management from Antioch University, Los Angeles. I am also a Certified Nonprofit Professional (CNP) through the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance, and am on the Steering Committee for the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance | Los Angeles.
GG Society: Now, we are chomping at the bit to hear about the book! Tell us about it.
Brookhart: Start Your Engines is for those who are interested in starting a nonprofit organization and those that want to run a more effective one. In it, the work of managing a 501(c)(3) is reframed through stories that make each of the four management functions easy to understand.
It is meant to be a fun, informative, and quick read. I wrote most of it while I was getting my Master’s in Nonprofit Management from Antioch University, Los Angeles – which required that I read a lot of non-fiction and text books. While I wanted the information that was inside these books, I had a hard time actually reading them because most of them were so dry. I love reading fiction, so I wanted to find a way to make a non-fiction book more engaging.
I did that by writing short stories to start off each chapter in ways that anyone could understand, whether they had set foot in a nonprofit organization or not.
GG Society: So many of us say “I will write a book someday.” You did. What made you decide to sit down and actually start something?
Brookhart: There were multiple forces compelling me to write this book.
The idea first came during grad school. My professor talked about the four functions of a nonprofit organization: governance, administration, development, and programs. Having it laid out like that really got my mind going. I had to do a lot of writing for my classes, so I figured I would make it count.
At the same time, I was working at the Center for Nonprofit Management. Answering “Helpline” questions was part of my job. Anyone could call with a management question, and I would either answer it or point them in the right direction. The number one question I got was, “How do I start a nonprofit?” I found myself wishing I had an hour to sit down with each of them to talk about all the things they needed to know about running a nonprofit before they took the plunge.
So, I knew there was a need for this book, but the idea of writing one was daunting. Enter my friend Dan Portnoy, author of The Non-Profit Narrative. I loved his book. It was short, to the point, and easy to read. And he said something that really changed everything for me: the original reason that publishers wanted authors to write long books was so that they could put a big, thick spine on it and catch people’s attention in book stores.
We don’t really have bookstores anymore so I could make my book as long or as short as I wanted. Suddenly, the idea of writing a whole book didn’t sound so scary. I would write until I had said what I needed to say. Because of that, my book is relatively short. It takes only an hour or two to get through the whole thing, depending on how fast you read, and I have packed that time with all the basics about running a nonprofit.
GG Society: What kept you in the game to actually finish it?
Brookhart: The need I kept seeing. So many people have a deep passion for the work, but have no clue how to run a business. Which in the end hurts the entire sector, but that’s a discussion for another day.
I would love for this book to be required reading before you filed your paperwork. Not for fame and fortune, but because it really is designed to give the reader a holistic view of a nonprofit organization and what it takes to be successful.
GG Society: How much research do you do?
Brookhart: Well, it’s based on all my years in the nonprofit sector and specifically 18 months in graduate school, so I’d say a lot.
GG Society: What was the hardest thing about writing this book?
Brookhart: Declaring it done. It’s so hard for a writer to say, “This is good enough” because it can always be better. I am constantly learning new things that could go in it. But at some point I had to stop and put it out into the world.
GG Society: There are many moving pieces when bringing a book to life – from pushing through writer’s fatigue, to working with a publisher, marketing and explaining the content to grandma. It’s a full-on quest. Any amusing story about the birth of this book?
Brookhart: I did have a moment where I was thinking it would never get finished. I had been procrastinating for weeks. I decided to read through what I had and do a bit of organizing and then realized that I was almost done. I had no idea I was so close. I spent a full day parked at a desk at my local library and finished the whole thing. Of course it changed quite a bit in editing, but that solid 6 hours in the library was a game changer. I guess it’s amusing for a writer to not know that they had almost an entire book finished. Like, how did I miss that?
GG Society: If you could go back to the moment right before you started – at the precise moment of idea conception – what advice would you give to your former self?
Brookhart: I’d advise keeping my eyes and ears open, and to learn as much as I could about myself as a writer, the writing process, the editing and publishing process, etc. I learned so much from writing this book – even from the times when I was trying to avoid writing it – but I probably could have learned a lot more if I wasn’t so focused on finishing.
GG Society: How can readers discover more about you and you work?
Brookhart: My website is: www.rachelbrookhart.com
You can also find me at:
Twitter: @RachelBinLA
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/rachelbrookhart
Amazon author profile: www.amazon.com/author/rachelbrookhart
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13506967.Rachel_Brookhart
GG Society: In what formats is your book available and where and when can we buy it?
Brookhart: The book is available in paperback and Kindle; perhaps audio someday if I get ambitious. It’s available exclusively at Amazon. To purchase: http://bit.ly/SYEbook
GG Society: What’s next for you Rachel?
Brookhart: That’s probably a more complicated answer than you bargained for! I recently left my position at CNM to spend some time exploring. I want to take the next step in my career, but I’m not sure exactly what that looks like, so after much deliberation, I decided to go on Sabbatical. I have a long list of things I want to learn before I make my next big move.
During this time, I will be consulting, which I’m really excited about, as well as doing some projects with for-profits, in an effort to learn how the other side does things. I also have some ideas for my next book, although I don’t have anything on paper yet.
In short, I’m going on an adventure.
GG Society: That sounds like the perfect springboard for a young author. Congratulations! Thank you for your time today Rachel, and good luck on your adventure – please keep us in the loop!
Note: This interview appeared first on GG Society. No goods or services have been exchanged for this segment. Copyright © 2016 Sky(lark) Strategies, LLC. All rights reserved
