MiLab

Nonprofits don’t have it easy.

After more than two decades serving as an Executive Director, COO, and consultant, I’ve seen a consistent—and disheartening—reality: funders want outcomes, but they don’t want to fund the infrastructure required to get there.

Grantmakers and donors generally don’t want to see resources going toward “overhead.” But without a solid operational foundation, even the best programs are at risk. I’ve watched organizations with incredible missions collapse, not because they lacked heart or vision, but because they lacked the systems and tools to sustain them.

I kept coming back to one not-so-simple truth: nonprofits have to figure out how to do more with less.

But how? Not through burnout. Not by duct-taping processes together or hoping for the rare unrestricted grant to appear.

I wrote Mission Impact Lab: A Nonprofit’s Guide to Doing More with Less because I believe there’s a better way. Operational optimization isn’t about bells and whistles. It’s about building core systems that make your organization stronger, leaner, and more adaptable so you can keep delivering your mission no matter the external pressure.

When I began researching and testing what worked across sectors, four key areas consistently emerged as the most powerful levers for impact:

  • Process Optimization
  • Cost Savings Implementation
  • Operational Resilience Building
  • Information Design & Data Visualization

These four pillars became the structure of the book.

And here’s what might surprise you: many nonprofits are paying full price for tools and services they could be getting for free or at a deep discount. When I surveyed nonprofit leaders, more than 75% were unaware of the wide range of discounted offerings available to them. Even those using one or two reduced-cost platforms were still paying full price for the majority of their operational needs.

Why? Because they didn’t have the time, bandwidth, or support to dig into what was available—let alone apply for, implement, and train staff on new systems.

Every single leader I surveyed said they needed help improving internal efficiency, cost strategies, and operational clarity—but those needs kept getting deprioritized.

I get it. It’s hard to focus on back-end systems when programs, fundraising, and compliance are all competing for attention. But if we don’t invest in operations, we put our programs—and our people—at risk.

That’s why I wrote this book.
Not as a theoretical guide.
Not as a pitch.
But as a practical roadmap built from real-world experience—yours and mine.

Mission Impact Lab offers tools, case examples, and strategies that any nonprofit can use to improve how they operate, stretch what they have, and build long-term resilience without sacrificing their mission in the process.

It’s not about perfection.
It’s about sustainability, clarity, and impact.

Learn more at https://www.missionimpactlab.com/

Click here for: Mission Impact Lab: A Nonprofit’s Guide to Doing More with Less

if this resonates, I hope you’ll share it with someone else doing this work.
We’re all in this together.

—Danielle