Missions to Movements
Missions to Movements is the nonprofit marketing and fundraising podcast that helps you grow recurring donors, scale monthly giving programs, and build digital campaigns that convert.
Hosted by Dana Snyder—speaker, strategist, and founder of Positive Equation—this show is packed with actionable nonprofit growth strategies, social media tips, and fundraising best practices.
Each week, you’ll hear how organizations are increasing donor retention, building thought leadership, and using digital fundraising to drive real impact. If you want to learn how to attract monthly donors, master nonprofit marketing, and transform your mission into a movement, this podcast is for you.
Missions to Movements
At Capacity? Not Enough Time? Scale Your Mission with Fractional Support with Vicki Burkhart
If you and your team are constantly juggling WAY too many priorities with not enough support, this episode is exactly what you need to hear. Vicki Burkhart is the powerhouse founder and CEO of The More Than Giving Co., a virtual, fractional staffing firm that has served over 230 nonprofit clients and counting!
There is a growing “crisis of capacity” across the nonprofit sector. Did you know 65% of nonprofit leaders say they don’t have enough staff to deliver programs and services?
Vicki explains how her Nonprofit Virtual Assistant program helps organizations scale smarter, freeing up leaders from day-to-day administrative tasks so they can focus on mission-driven growth.
You’ll learn what successful integration of a VA looks like in action, how much it costs, and how to assess when it’s the right time to seek outside support. I also share my own experience as a client!
Resources & Links
Learn more about Vicki on LinkedIn, email her at mtg@morethangiving.co, and check out The More Than Giving website to explore their fractional staffing services. You can also schedule a meeting to determine the next best steps for your organization.
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This year, on Tuesday, December 2, 2025, join the conversation: share your favorite nonprofit’s campaign, volunteer for a cause you care about, share an act of kindness, or encourage your audience to do the same.
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Let's Connect!
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Today's episode is exactly what you need to hear if your team or you is constantly juggling way too many priorities with not nearly enough support. I am joined by Vicky Burkhart, the Powerhouse founder and CEO of the More Than Giving Company, a virtual fractional staffing firm that served over 230 nonprofit clients in counting. From executive leadership to development support, their nonprofit virtual assistant, NPVA program, is changing how organizations think about capacity building. Vicky brings nearly three decades of nonprofit experience, a deep commitment to advancing women's leadership, and a team of 55 seasoned professionals who are helping nonprofits grow smarter, not just bigger. And I have worked with Vicky and her team over the past, I think we talked about three, four years. And so I am sharing a little bit of my story in this episode as well, and really talking about where nonprofit teams can hit a wall, how to spot the right time to bring in a VA for your team, and what real transformation can look like when you get the right people in the right roles. Let's go ahead and meet Vicky.
SPEAKER_00:When organizations really make the switch to fractional staffing, when they really sort of sit down and look at what they need, in many cases, they can survive virtually. They don't necessarily have traffic coming in and out during the day. The fractional component just allows them to grow. If you're an organization that is looking to grow and scale, whether you're for-profit business, nonprofit, we're all about scaling that organization, fractional staffing is a really great, I think, alternative to saddling yourself with a lot of long-term employees that you're not sure you're going to need a year from now.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, Vicky, I'm gonna bring up a word. It's a very buzzwordy word, bandwidth. Can we talk about bandwidth in our sector? I think in every conference I go to, it gets brought up or on a webinar about that nonprofits are stretched really thin. Listener, you might be like, yeah, that's me right now. What are you seeing in your work in terms of organizations hitting a wall? And how has fractional staffing really played a role to help with that pressure that they may be feeling?
SPEAKER_00:I think, Dana, you know, just even historically, and somebody who's served as an executive director for 40 years, those people, we all are always sort of searching for greater bandwidth. I mean, I don't know of many executive directors who will tell you that they have extra time in their day. But right now, I think what we're seeing is almost an unprecedented amount of pressure and uncertainty on nonprofits, which is creating somewhat of a crisis of capacity, I think finance and human resources, staffing. You've got to have finances in order to invest in technology and people. So as the finances dwindle, the the first, I think, reaction is to reduce where you're spending money. And sometimes that is in staffing. So what we're seeing as far as bandwidth is that people are having less and less because positions aren't being filled, positions aren't being expanded. People are just fearful of spending too much money. The interesting thing that I have seen in some of the data coming out from late 24 to early 2025 is that, you know, while the financial constraints are difficult, what we're seeing for the first time is that nonprofit leaders, about 65% of them, are reporting that they do not have enough staffing to deliver programs and services. That I think that certainly speaks to bandwidth. And I think that's exactly where when I'm having conversations with a prospective client, that's where I bring in the fractional model because it's not an either or. That's right. Or as long as you need it, right? It can take administrative day-to-day functions off of an ED's desk almost immediately and open up space. It can bring in, and this is what we see in really small or medium-sized organizations, the opportunity to use senior level, high-level staffing because you're only bringing in a fraction of what a full-time major gifts executive would cost. So it's allowing not only bandwidth, but bandwidth with expertise. And I think that's really, really important. Yes. We also see, and we do a lot of this in anniversary meetings with our staff members as well as our regular quarterlies with our clients. We've got, I think, a really good shot at longevity and continuity. We're seeing a lot of clients that have been with us for five, 10, even 20 years. Amazing. I was gonna ask you about that. Yeah. Yeah. They're building teams. And, you know, right now I'm going through a period where we've had a person or two people on a team, and the client is now coming back and say, can you fill this piece? We have another piece we'd like to. So I think where I'm seeing real success is with the nonprofits that have opened their eyes to different solutions to staffing.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. Okay. And I want to paint a little bit of a picture about also how we know each other and why I am so passionate about this. And then we'll dive into the actual definition of like MPBAs and what you've created a little bit here and the importance of why I think this is needed now more than ever. Is I've had my business for eight years. And what year was it when I met you? Was it 20, 22?
SPEAKER_00:I think it was 21 or 22.
SPEAKER_03:It's been a while ago. It's been a while. So I realized I was seeing pretty stagnant. I am a solopreneur, and I had hired some freelancers here and there, but without a lot of success. And it would take me so much time and effort to find those people. I was putting up, I was reviewing applications, I was putting up job descriptions, and I was having to go through the process of interviewing all of those people, trying to go with my gut. Like if anybody's ever been through the hiring process, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. And then I realized I was seeing not great traction in like who I was picking or they would come in and out. And I was like, okay, something needs to change. I am so busy and burnt out myself. Like I was feeling stretched on bandwidth. I mean, I was doing everything. So I needed help on some tasks that I know I could pass over to somebody else. And so when I came across you, I remember thinking, okay, I really need help with my podcast support, is where I think it started. And because the podcast was three years ago. Yeah, so I guess it was 21, 2022. And so I realized one, I was stagnant in my financial growth from my company because I was continuing to hold on tightly to everything. And I realized, okay, this has got to change. There's no way I'm going to be able to grow. So I need to take some risks, a little bit of financial risks, and see what this can change into. So at first, I remember hiring an MPVA to help manage all of kind of like the podcast process and all of the content and the blogs. And that took significant time off of my responsibility that they could run with. And we, what was so great is once we got into a flow, we like rarely had check-ins. She was just like cruising. It was awesome. And I was like, this is great. And so there would be occasional check-ins. And then I hired Kat onto my team as like a part-time contractor. She's nearly full-time now, but that was a year and a half ago. And at that point, I remember saying, Hey, I need to pause the NPVA to see. I want Kat to, she's the director of operations and partnerships. And I want her to feel like she can figure out where does she need further support? So Kat came on, and then what's it been at least six months now? Yeah. Yeah. After Kat and I working together for a while, about a year, then we said, hey, we're growing so much. We've added new things to the business. Now we need to bring on another MPVA. And then your team came in. So I wanted to like kind of paint this picture of how it actually looks like for you to utilize the service. Like you can start and stop. I wanted Kat to feel empowered to really, and she completely manages lovely woman on our team, Angela, as our MPVA, and is an extraordinary team member for us to help with so many things. But what was great was we were able to specifically say to you, this is how the business has evolved.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:These are the types of things we need support with. And you're like, great, we're going to go into our database and we are going to hand pick the right person for you. Here's their resume. Here's a description. Let's jump on a call. Are they a good fit? So I just wanted to give our broader understanding of I've gone through this process before. And it takes so much pressure off of the search and even the interview part. So, with all of that said, can you explain what a I keep saying MPVA, but it's the nonprofit virtual assistant program? It's so unique. Can you talk a little bit about this program? What types of roles are these VAs stepping into, and how do you do the matching on the back end?
SPEAKER_00:So the nonprofit virtual assistant program or MPVAs really was born out of my career as an executive leader in nonprofits, knowing that I never had the support that I needed as I was sort of coming through my career and different positions with nonprofit organizations. So what I was really looking to do was to build a program that would provide nonprofits with, again, exactly what they need, when they need it, for as long as they need it. And it sounds like sort of a funny jingle, but it is very right. And you just sort of walk through exactly what we go through with our clients. We've got nonprofit executive leaders who are dependent upon their MPVAs for managing their day-to-day activities, from meetings, calendaring, triaging their email, doing all of their correspondence. They support boards, they support board committees, they support board operations and meetings. They can provide the whole back office support for your fundraising program from managing your database to sending out your acknowledgments to making sure that you've got prospect research, your corporate partnerships are in place, your special events are supported. We have folks that will support a marketing plan, whether that's doing some light social media, some electronic communications. They are really there to do just about everything that you might need to have done, short of moving into some professional level of expertise. And then we have fractional staff members who can do the associate level and also the senior team level. So that's what we do. Literally anything. Literally anything within the nonprofit positions that you would expect. Where we lean on partners are for things like HR, IT, and legal pieces. Other than that, it's pretty wide open as to what we can support through our team. And we spend a lot of time with the client, as you discussed in your own experience, really learning what it is that they need. We don't match on position description, we match on deliverables. We want to know what you want to accomplish. We want to keep the ROI high. And we want to make sure that whomever we're putting into that position has the right overture, the right training, the right proficiency in certain technical platforms. You're in the right time zone if that's an issue. We like to even go as far as getting somebody matched with you that has an interest in your mission or your cause. Because what we find is the stronger that match, the longer that relationship will go on, the deeper that relationship will be. And yes, you know, admittedly, if we don't get it right the first time, we'll go right back at it again. So I tell clients, if it isn't a good fit for you, then let us know. That happens rarely.
SPEAKER_03:Right. Definitely. Can you actually share an example, like a real life example or two of a nonprofit that has successfully integrated a VA into their team? What did they do? What did they experience? What's like a real life example?
SPEAKER_00:Well, you know, interestingly, I just had a conversation with the president of the board of one of our clients who has had Casey, an NPVA, on board now for going on three years. And he is now looking for a strategic plan because Casey has made such an impact on the growth of his organization that he feels that it's time to actually look at setting longer-term goals. She's become the hub of the whole program. This is a 501c6, so it's a membership organization. She does a lot with the membership program, membership recruitment, balancing the benefits of membership, making sure all the programs and services that these members should have are there. She supports the board and all of its committees. She basically coordinates their annual conference. She has, according to this board member, really been the key to their success in growing the organization, not only in membership numbers, but in membership retention and membership. It has been a phenomenal experience for them. She is the only, she's the first and only paid professional that they have or have ever had. So they haven't needed to go beyond Casey. They just keep building Casey out within the organization. And she is now a real critical component to their success. Incredible. Is it the same Casey I worked with?
SPEAKER_03:Yes. Yes. Oh, that's amazing. I was like, wait a second. So Casey worked with me for a year at least. Yes. On a podcast. Yes, she's phenomenal. And even right now, Angela's working on helping to manage all of the operational aspects of my mastermind program. Like when I tell you, if you are someone who has been just holding on tight to everything in your organization, but you know, you know you need to let some things go. This is such a great way to release slowly a little bit of that control with some different other experts also that can bring their experience to the table for this too. I know Casey's been there for three years. She was with me for a year. Is there a typical length of time?
SPEAKER_00:It just varies client to client. We have some clients that are short-term, they're project-oriented. They'll come back, you know, when they have a new project. They'll often want the same MPVA. Sometimes we can do that, sometimes we can't, but we do promise to find somebody who can do certainly do the work. I have MPVAs who have been with their clients for five plus years. Casey is approaching a long-term stint with her clients. We also have some teams that have been in place for 20 years. So when organizations really make the switch to fractional staffing, when they really sort of sit down and look at what they need, in many cases, they can survive virtually. They don't necessarily have traffic coming in and out during the day. The fractional component just allows them to grow. You laid it out very nicely with what you've needed. Same kinds of things happens with them. And that's where we see a lot of the length of duration is when they are actually scaling. If you're an organization that is looking to grow and scale, whether you're for-profit business, nonprofit, we're all about scaling that organization. Fractional staffing is a really great, I think, alternative to saddling yourself with a lot of long-term employees that you're not sure you're going to need a year from now. And that's what we see as far as length of time. Can you explain a little bit too about how the pricing structure works? The pricing structure for nonprofit virtual assistants works on the amount of hours. And basically it's simple. You go online, you can pick the package you want. I believe the essential is about 10 hours at$550. And it goes down cost per hour with the more hours that you have. The nice thing about it is you create your own account. You can go in. If it's a particularly busy month, you can add a few hours. If you know you're going to be sort of hibernating for July and August, you can hibernate. All the hours roll over. We don't lose any hours in uh translation. And we always have people here on board that can help you sort of dissect what package is going to be the best for you. I encourage people to dip their toe in the water and just try it. Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. I think that was what was such a great even way for me to get started. It was like, okay, it's month to month. I can see how this goes and I can add if it gets busy. I can lower if it just allows you to have full control, especially if you're just starting out with this. When we talk about your own personal recruitment, I know your team is primarily women-powered and really rooted in having nonprofit experience, which is amazing. How do you do your hiring? How do you find people to be on your roster to then share with organizations?
SPEAKER_00:We are in a time where I think, you know, we're women-powered. I think a lot of that is because women have embraced fractional work a little bit quicker than perhaps men have. There's a dearth of talent out there of nonprofit professionals who no longer want to work with one organization, but love the opportunity of working with a multitude of nonprofits. The variety is wonderful. The opportunity for them to expand themselves into areas that they are even personally interested in has been great. We are almost in a constant state of recruiting because the programs keep growing. And we need not only NPVAs, but also senior development, executive leaders, CMOs, et cetera. So we're always in that. We require our MPVAs to have at least three to five years of nonprofit experience before they're onboarded. It's very important to me to onboard people into these positions who have a real knowledge and understanding of how the nonprofit sector works. It's different than the for-profit sector. So even senior professionals will have 20 years of CEO or ED or development director experience before they come onto our team.
SPEAKER_03:This was a big difference for me. So with more than giving, that you specifically work in the nonprofit space, where if you're just going out to any typical virtual assistant agency company and looking for somebody, there's going to be a lot of education that you need to provide at the beginning to express like, this is what it's about. This is kind of how our sector works. This is what our organization works. So that was very helpful in being able to clearly say this is what I do. And they're like, oh, yes, totally understand what you're talking about. Instead of it being like, wait, what? So you're constantly looking for, and I'm just thinking of listeners who might be like, oh, like I might want to do this. Is there specific roles you're looking for now? Is it all across the board always open? How do people apply? Or what's that process like?
SPEAKER_00:I am always looking for interested people who want to work fractionally, who are coming out of the nonprofit space with a level of expertise that they are willing to continue to share with nonprofit organizations. We are a community here at More Than Giving. We're a community of staff members, team members who understand and are very knee deep into the nonprofit world. And we're a community of clients who enjoys working with those who understand the differences between a 5016 and a 501c3. You don't have to tell our folks that.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. So when they apply and they get accepted, then they go through like an official MPVA training with you before they start actually working with clients.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. No one gets matched with a client until they are certified. And that certification is a 12 module program that I put together that is based in nonprofit best practices from finance to board development to fundraising to just basic fiscal systems that you would see in a nonprofit organization. And then platforms, the popular platforms that are being used by nonprofit organizations. So there's a level of proficiency before these folks actually get out with their clients.
SPEAKER_03:So cool. Amazing. How many years have you had the company? The company has been in business for 27 years. Wow, that's amazing. Especially because does it seem like 27 years ago, I feel like the concept of VVA was so was it the same thing or has that evolved?
SPEAKER_00:The concept of the nonprofit virtual assistant has evolved. It's really, and I'm very honest with people, came out of my own frustration of not having skilled hands supporting me and taking too much of my time into administration. We started doing accelerator programs with small nonprofits, and I would bring an MPV or an administrator with me, and we would be doing the support. But when we left, there was no support there for the organization. And the percentage of success rate for those that didn't have administrators was much less than those that did. And that's where the whole concept of the MPVA came from is the fact that you alluded to this in your own case. In order to grow and scale, even in order to stay up with things, you've got to have the right support within the organization to do that. That's right.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, please listen when I am living proof of this, and that it was so hard for me to take the risk to do it. Like I get it. As a small organization, you want to be super tight with your budget, but$550 a month, start with that with 10 hours. See what 10 hours can do for you. That's it.
SPEAKER_00:Right. If it's not for you, you don't go a second month. It's as easy as that. That's right.
SPEAKER_03:So for a nonprofit professional that's listening right now, maybe they're intrigued. Maybe you're overwhelmed at this concept, but you're kind of excited about it. Vicky, what would you say is their first best step in really assessing whether VA could support their team?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I always have them sort of take a look at sort of where they and their team are. And sometimes it's just they, because sometimes it's a one-person ED or CEO. You know, are you overextended? Are you getting to the critical things that you need to do to advance the organization? Are you spending too much time on administrative pieces versus really high-level ED work? Is your organization losing ground in fundraising? That's a real red flag for the fact that you need help. And then I tell, you know, when I'm in an intake interview, I always ask the potential client to make a list. Make a list of all the things you do in your day. And then go through and sort of cross out those that you shouldn't be doing. And then make a list of the things that aren't on the list because you never get to it. And you will find that you will be energized by the thought of being able to offload some of those items to somebody who is very proficient at getting them done, which will allow you to do some of the things that really you, the board, and others expect you to be doing and doing really well.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. And if you are, as probably most of us are pretty conservative with budgets, as I am as well, one of my other best fractional hires was a fractional CFO. Also, probably around the same time that we started working together. Because I, again, was trying to manage everything. I am not a great finance brain. I am definitely more on the creative side. And so, in order to make these decisions of can I afford to bring on an MPVA? Can I afford to participate in this leadership development program that I want to do? I brought on a fractional CFO. So every month we meet and I have this very intense financial workbook that they've put together that we all should have. And so, nonprofit for you, maybe this is meeting with whoever that is for you or your accountant. And we just look at the cash flow and we look at the forecasting and we say, okay, let's go ahead and put in$550 a month or$990 a month for the next six months. Does that actually make a dent? Yeah. Does that actually change anything? And I remember when I put in the first amount, she's like, you can't tell you did it. It's it's that's nominal of a fee. And the answer was go for it. So when you can have the financial intelligence backing the decision, I think that's what helps make it a no-brainer. And that you can always look at it and be like, if anything was to change, you have the month by month to go with. So that's my advice to you, listener, is if this is something you're thinking about, if you know you just need support, which I think everyone does right now. I say this specifically with monthly giving, like, bring on somebody to help you grow your monthly giving program. No, like to do the thank yous, to send out the emails if credit cards are expiring, to make updates to your receipts that go out every month. Like there are people that can take on that work for you that you have probably already created or could create an SOP for a process, a guide that this person can execute for you. And then once you have the financial like green light, go for it. Vicki, where can listeners connect with you? Where can they ask you more questions? What's the best place for them to learn more?
SPEAKER_00:They can go directly to me at MTG, more than giving mtg at more than giving.co co. You can go directly to our website, www.morthangiving.co. There are plenty of opportunities on the website to click through for an appointment just to talk, you know, just to get a better feeling for what our services are. Happy to do that with any listener who is interested in learning more about fractional staffing.
SPEAKER_03:Amazing. And I will make sure to have that link in the show notes. And thank you so much for 27 years ago having the idea and carrying it through. That is a huge feat. So we're very grateful for you.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. Thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate it. Thank 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 movie.
