In today's world, what does it mean to be brave as a nonprofit leader? Especially when the stakes of the future are thousands of students who've historically been overlooked by the systems meant to serve them. My guest today has built her entire career around that question. Angelique Albert is the CEO of a Native Forward Scholars Fund, the largest direct scholarship provider to Native students in the United States. But what makes her story especially powerful for nonprofit leaders is how she's grown Native Forward in the past nine years. She will tell you that scaling a mission takes more than passion. It takes bold investments in marketing, the courage to make unconventional leadership decisions being in the room, and the willingness to make a case loud enough for the right partners out to find you. And that's exactly what happened when Mackenzie Scott took notice twice. Her most recent gift, 50 million unrestricted,
at a moment when scholarship applications are surging. And that kind of capital doesn't just fund scholarships, it truly changes what's possible. So in the episode today, we're talking about brave leadership, what it takes to access transformational capital, and why investing in your organization's visibility is strategic. So welcome Angelique to Missions to Movement.
SPEAKER_00As an MBA, it is one of the three main pillars. You know, you have the finder, the minder, and the grinder when you're doing business, right? We spent such a tiny amount of money on marketing. And so when I came in, it was really easy to see from a business perspective, wow, this is a massive opportunity because you have amazing programming. You have students who are out there changing lives and changing the world. And how easy is it just to show their face and their amazing achievements and that we've been able to contribute a little bit to that. That's the beauty of it.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so I want to go back to 2017, which was a very memorable year in my life too. It's the year I actually started my business, Positive Equation, which is wild that that was nine years ago now. And this is also when you stepped into the CEO role. So much, I'm sure, has changed over that time. Has there been, and what I always love asking CEOs and executives is has there been any major inflection points or partnerships or leadership decisions that really fundamentally changed what you think the org's trajectory over nearly the past decade?
SPEAKER_00Sure. Yes, my anniversary is coming up this week. Hey. So celebrating with you. For me, I think there are two inflection points. I guess first, what comes to mind is my predecessor spending 47 years developing phenomenal programming and you know, all of the work that that took, but there was such a heavy focus on serving students, doing a good job, and creating phenomenal program that was culturally congruent. And so that was really the primary focus. So when I came in, it was really focused on strategy, is the main thing that comes to mind. And two different major inflection points would be when I first stepped in, I was a fresh MBA, ready to do strategy work, and a scholarship
recipient, I will say, and a first-generation college-born student. But but really taking everything that the predecessors had worked so hard on to create and shining a light on it. So in the strategy work that we did initially, it was focused on a lot of core kind of components, you know, the strengths and opportunities. But we had to go back and really analyze mission, vision, core values, infrastructure needs, software needs, updates and policies, a lot of basic things. Yeah. But the key point was strategy. And strategy, the strategy was specifically focused on fundraising and marketing at that time with some of those other infrastructure needs. So it felt very base core kind of things. And then I would say the second inflection point was wait, before we dive into the second one.
SPEAKER_02So I'm thinking about anyone who might be entering that type of CEO role and looking back on nine years ago and the strategy piece. What do you think sometimes is missed in that? And I think that was such a good analysis, like looking at software. Does the mission, does the vision align? Where do you think sometimes people jump and just get too excited to jump in without maybe taking a like a wider viewpoint of where the organization is at? Or are there things that you wouldn't even go back and be like, oh, it would have been great if I had looked at this?
SPEAKER_00Or yeah, sometimes things evolve, right? And we go with the flow of things because that's human nature. You just always want to grow and improve. And sometimes we don't take that full stop and just go back and say, What are we doing? You know, is it a lot? Is this where we want to be? And taking an honest look at what are your strengths? But you're looking at weaknesses, you're looking at opportunities and taking an honest look at that. And so I think it is just taking that time. And also in the nonprofit space, we all get so busy, right? And you're just trying to do work and try to impact the students and or whoever you're serving, right? So we're always trying to focus on them, and that is important. But if you're not aligning strategy or looking at kind of a broader picture of your organization, how do you elevate the organization? So I think it is important, even though we get caught up in making sure we're doing a good job and serving our people, it is important to just set that time aside to do that basic
work that we all know.
SPEAKER_02I was just gonna say, how did you set aside that time? Yeah, how did you create that bandwidth for yourself?
SPEAKER_00We the board made it a priority to do mission and vision. And so we set out a retreat time, specific time available. And then when I came in, we set out time to create values systems. So values drive behavior, behavior drives culture. This is you know, so we set time aside for that and just made it a priority. And then when this strategy work came in, we all sat down and we mapped that out, and it kind of took a full stop, you know, to be able to say to carve out that time. So it is important to do that work to make sure that you're doing the best job that you can. That does also serve your constituents.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. How often would you repeat something like that?
SPEAKER_00We typically do it every five years.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that first one though, all of our goals we kind of hit in four years because a lot of them were financially based and marketing based. So when we received the $20 million gift from McKinsey, it was like, okay, let's do a new strategy. We were able to hire an external consultant to do a very comprehensive dive on strategy. And it's important that strategy work isn't for us, it's not just something that sits on a shelf. We've integrated to everything. So performance is based on strategy work and core values. And so we integrate it. We have at our staff meetings, we talk about strategy. When we're talking in our day-to-day communication, we're like, hey, on priority 2.5, you know, or 2.4. This is what, you know, when we open conversations, we open it in reference to the strategy work because we live it and do it every day. But that second inflection point allowed us to really dig deeper. And whenever you have
access to capital, guess what? You have access to more resources. This is what happens in the world. So we doubled down on our marketing.
SPEAKER_02Was that to just because I know we glossed over it and that's a massive achievement and celebration? I'm sure internally it was the McKenzie get was that a complete surprise? Curious for those who are like, how does that process even work? Like, were you notified that something might be coming? Or is that just like, hey, you were selected and here's what happens next?
SPEAKER_00We got a call from an organization saying, hey, we have a philanthropist who may be interested and we've vetted you and we'd like a little bit of a little bit more information, if you could just forward us some stuff. And so we forwarded that and they said thank you. We'll be getting a hold of you. And it was very vague. So if you get a vague call, take it. It's always very interesting, you know, and not full of details. And so whenever we get a strange email or phone call that's very vague, we typically respond quickly to those. So I encourage you. You might be going, is this real? You know, so I encourage people to respond to those because it was not something that was cultivated or steward. It was Mackenzie Scott kind of vetting us and other organizations in a comprehensive way. They reached out and just got a random call one day. Or I think it was an email saying, you know, hey, do you have some time to talk? And I'm like, Yes, I do. And so we took the call and it was just a shock, a surprise, you know, to say, hey, we'd like to invest this much money in you. And it's just unrestricted, and you can do what you want. We believe in your leadership. Incredible.
SPEAKER_02Well, and it's a testament to, so that was was that last year? That was 2020. 2020. Okay. So you had just been in the role for a few years. Four years. Because one thing you mentioned too, that I also don't want to just like slide under is marketing. And that there was a strategic effort to work on marketing in our sector, that's often not the case. A lot of the times budgets for marketing either don't exist or are teeny, teeny, tiny. I guess at that point, had there been work done in marketing, at what point? Because I'm sure that's also part of it is to be known, to be out there, to have visibility is so important to be offered opportunities like that. For organizations that are maybe like either coming into a leadership role or marketing is a very lower tier item. What would be your thoughts?
SPEAKER_00Yes, I would say as an MBA, it is one of the three main pillars. You know, you have the finder, the minder, and the grinder when you're doing business, right? And finding people to buy your product or service is a big pillar. And part of that is people
just need to know about you. And yes, we spent such a tiny amount of money on marketing. When I came in, we had a part-time consultant. We paid her 20 hours a week to do all of the fundraising and all of the marketing. And I think it might have been at the time, I mean, maybe $20,000 total. Wow, for the whole year. Yeah, for the whole year. And so when I came in, it was really easy to see from a business perspective, wow, this is a massive opportunity because you have amazing programming. You have students who are out there changing lives and changing the world. And how easy is it just to show their face and their amazing achievements and that we've been able to contribute a little bit to that. That's the beauty of it. And I think that's the beauty of the people that you know, your listeners, they're the experts at grinding, right? They're the experts at serving their communities and doing the work. They're the experts. And so it sometimes it is just that marketing is a big piece of it, just letting the world know what you're doing is important. And you know, you need the money to do it. So it's easy for me to say that. But one of the first things we had to do is get donors to believe in that, to say fundraising software so we can raise money so that we can spend money on marketing. That's right. So there are steps to it, right? So when you're doing that strategy work, you're like, okay, I need a donor to pay for fundraising actual software instead of spreadsheets, right? Yes, yes, 12 different spreadsheets of different donor data. And so you just have to take those baby steps before you get to the big steps. But marketing was massive. I think that is a big opportunity space for nonprofits because we don't take the time to toot our own horn and share our stories, and and the work that we're doing is pretty amazing. And so that's something that, yeah, as an MBA, I know is important. We just have to share out those stories so that people know that we're here.
SPEAKER_02And I mean, you truly are known for being this national voice and leader, like native for what not just a scholarship provider and what you do. I want to like even dive more into marketing because I think there's so much there. What were the big changes that you really started to implement, maybe at the beginning, and then maybe tell us kind of like where things are now? How has it evolved?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, with that first infusion of money, we really focused on that deep dive operating model, digging deeper into the operating model and how we could create efficiencies and how we do things. And marketing remained top, fundraising remained top, and serving our students is always number one, right? And how do we make sure we're serving them in the best way? But we did dig in deeper to the marketing piece, and we did a complete rebrand of the organization because we used to be called American Indian Graduate Center. And we've always, I mean, for many years, we've done a lot more than graduate work. So we rebranded, we worked on doing more targeted marketing, doing geo-targeted ads, and we have also spent a lot of time and effort in, to your point, being out there in communities and being a thought leader is the way you're phrasing it. Yeah. The way I'm phrasing it is really making sure that I'm getting exposure for Native Forward and I'm using my
voice because as a Native woman, I was raised on my reservation, I raised my kids on my reservation. I know my struggles. I know the struggles of my community, the struggles of education. And so it's important for me to put myself in spaces where I typically wouldn't, where people who have never known about us to learn about us. So part of that marketing effort was making sure that I'm putting myself in spaces that maybe I don't feel the most comfortable being at. Maybe I'm the only native person, maybe I feel small compared to others, right? Let's go to let's dream big, let's go to South by Southwest, let's go to let's position ourselves to be out there and sharing the story. And I just can't say enough about that. Where once you put yourself in those spaces, there are allies and people who relate to you from various communities who then become your allies and hear your stories. And so you're right. That's really understated thing that sometimes we don't think about doing or take the time to do, right? When we're so busy serving our communities.
SPEAKER_02I always say, like, where are you currently invisible where you should be taking up space and start to figure out those communities, those events, those places of where that can happen. We just had a great speaker, Deion Dawson, at the Monthly Giving Summit and talked about voice to velocity. And I love that he said that he's like, thought leadership isn't about being famous, it's about being familiar. And I thought that was so true. It's like you want to be familiar, you want to be trusted, you want to be a voice that's in because the message is too important to not share it. Have there been certain, I don't know if you have a story or something that comes to mind around one instance that led to a really powerful next step, whether it was an event that you spoke at or somebody at your team was at, but it led to something or a conversation or that you were like, wow, like that was unexpected.
SPEAKER_00I would say there are so many of these spaces that I put myself in that sometimes I felt small or I felt just uncomfortable. But yes, speaking at, I think it was maybe South by Southwest, and I ended up meeting some phenomenal people, and then ended up collaborating on other talks where we were talking about kind of the impact of women. So I did talks with Women Moving Millions and GoFundMe, that was an outcome of one of my talks that someone from another community heard, right? But then led to connection to women bankers, who led to connections to me being on advisory boards where now I get to hear from and learn from people in spaces that I never thought I would be, right? I get to learn from people who are, say, my peers, but their nonprofits are pulling in $2.8 billion, right? Well, I get to be in the room taking, you know, I still consider myself learning. You know, I'm in these spaces. I always learn from other people who are who are in spaces that I maybe haven't been in. So every single interaction that we have had at these broader spaces has been worth it just by creating those networks of people and exposures to people. And that came from that investment in marketing, which actually came from that investment to a PR firm, right? Our communications, you know, our $20,000 that we invested in not gonna do that, but having access to capital or you just setting your intention to say marketing is important, what does that mean? In year one, it didn't mean getting a PR firm, right? Who would help us connect to worlds we didn't know existed? It was just, you know, making sure that we were telling our story and sharing, highlighting our students. And so it starts at a different space, you know, and four years later we were expanding, and then five years later we're expanding more. So it's that continue to grow and evolve and dig deeper. But marketing is definitely essential, and that networking piece is a part of it.
SPEAKER_02You brought up a really great point. If listeners, if you saw me, I'm like getting closer and closer to my computer, I'm like, wait, I have questions, I have questions on this. As an executive of a nonprofit organization, where and you you mentioned learning and like being in this room, getting access to creative minds, right? Of larger organizations, where do you find yourself investing your time learning? What are you attending? What are you absorbing to learn the next thing? What has come up for you?
SPEAKER_00I am always learning. I think it's important to be a lifelong learner. And we all start in different places, right? So I think that for me, the networking opportunities usually lead to other things, like being on boards, being in spaces that you can contribute as well as learn. So I do sit on various boards and just lean in and take those opportunities when they present themselves. I do have an executive coach who helps me as well.
SPEAKER_02Love that. No, that's so important. And I think that also, I don't know if you're friends with a lot of other CEOs, is that common in
our space? I know in the business world it is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it is becoming more and more popular in the nonprofit space. Good. I'm so glad to hear that. As leaders, we have to take time for ourselves. And I do believe in learning from everyone. Like I can learn from, you know, if I'm at a conference and I'm presenting, but end up meeting someone in the audience, I think that there's a lot of opportunity to share there. But courage to always be learning. So I participate in executive kind of programs. I've done a couple of them at Dartmouth College. I've done one at Boston College. So they're kind of tailored to what my needs are. But as I evolve, I find that executive coach is very helpful.
SPEAKER_02I love that piece of advice. Because a lot of times people will ask, they'll ask me, like, what conferences should I attend? And I'm like, well, what are you trying to learn? What are you focused on right now? And I like how you specifically identified a few of those programs that might have been directed on something specific you were wanting to learn and absorb and be around at that given time. And that can change. And a lot of times I go outside of our sector for learnings as well. It's important to get out of our bubble for things. And so if you're really focused on marketing, go to a marketing conference. It doesn't have to be nonprofit focused. It's gonna like open so many ideas for you. I I attended last year's Sub Summit, which is the largest subscription conference in the US. And obviously, my main focus is on monthly giving. And so I was so curious to hear from these boxes or Netflix or Fad Fit Fun or any of these to like what are you working on? What problems are you seeing? Because consumers are donors. This all shapes up into I want to kind of like wrap with you around. What kind of leadership do you think? I mean, you're about to hit nine years that you believe the nonprofit sector needs more of. And you've talked a little bit about how you're already personally preparing to do that. But what do you think in the next few years that leaders listening to this conversation right now should really be investing in for themselves?
SPEAKER_00I think that it's important that we are leaders who are not afraid of change, are not afraid to be bold. I think that the world is evolving and the world is changing. And if we continue to do things the same, we're doing a disservice to ourselves. We have to be prepared to think differently, think outside of the box and be open to change. We're seeing our world every day change around us. And to serve our students, or for me, you know, my constituents are our students. So I look at what they're going through on a daily basis and how their lives are changing. And I have to change with them to be able to be a good leader. I have to listen to my constituents, but also
not fear change. At the same time that we stay true to our values and our mission and our vision, I think it is important to not fear change and to also step into spaces with a mindset of abundancy instead of scarcity. Because sometimes that harms us more than hurts us. We think we're all just trying to get our little piece of the pie when if we have a more with a more abundant mindset and more inclusive and maybe think of the unusual partners, right? Or unusual partnerships. If we are going into a space where things are changing, I'm going to lean on what people would think of as competitors. Some of my strongest partnerships have been with people who are in the same exact space, but maybe doing better. For example, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund and API Scholars, you know, they're in the same space and serving, you know, communities of color. And I think that we could be competitors and going after funding, or we can be partners in that. That's right. But also these two organizations right now are some of my strongest supporters who I call for advice and help in strengthening my nonprofit organization. They have learned more lessons and share those with me. And they share absolutely policies. They share some of their procedural things that they do so that I can strengthen myself and be a better leader and maybe get to where they are someday, right? So just seeming to perfect box, you know, and thinking, you know, not being afraid of change. You know, I come from humble beginnings, we'll say that. And so and sometimes, you know, I guess early in life, I was always just trying to get my little piece of the pie to serve my people. But really, I feel like I know what it feels like to have nothing. So sometimes it's like, you know what? Sometimes we have to be fearless and and move into those spaces to just be brave and you know what's right for your communities. Like we, as people who come from those communities, and I'm sure like your constituents and your your viewer base, they know what is best for their communities because they are of those communities, they serve their communities, they know what's best. So I think leaning into that and being brave enough to just be bold in that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I love it. Angelique, this has been such an extraordinary conversation. I could talk to you forever. Thank you so much for joining us. Where can listeners connect with you and learn more about the Native Forward Scholars Fund?
SPEAKER_00Oh, please follow us on all of our social media platforms, which are typically native underscore forward or native forward scholars fund. So please follow us there. Reach out to us on our website. We always welcome partners and shared learning.
SPEAKER_02So amazing. Thank you so much. Appreciate everything that you're doing and congratulations. I know it's been a few years, but still congratulations on the McKenzie Scott gift. That's truly fabulous and a testament to all the hard work that your team has been putting in for years and years.
SPEAKER_00So this year we just got the $50 million gift in addition to the $20 million gift. So this is a new year, a new, so we are excited and gratitude and encourage philanthropy to follow McKenzie's example. So deserving.
SPEAKER_02Yes. And you had the materials prepared to send them to make them say yes. So I'd say that's also something organizations should have prepared is when they come ringing
or emailing, have the fabulous, like you've spent the time on the marketing, you had the materials put together, like you were prepared. You were ready to go when that opportunity knocked on the door. So props to you and your team. And again, thank you so much for everything you're doing.
SPEAKER_00Aw, thank you, Dana.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of Missions to Movement. If you enjoyed our conversation and found it helpful, I would love for you to take a moment to leave a review wherever you're listening. Your feedback helps us reach more change makers like you and continue bringing impactful stories and strategies to the show. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button too so you'll never miss an episode. And until next time, keep turning your mission into a movement.