40: The Leadership Behaviors That Shape Your Culture (with ED Rachel Hutchens)

Culture doesn't happen by accident. It's built one leadership decision at a time.

Many nonprofit leaders accept high turnover, burnout, and 60-hour workweeks as part of the job. 

But Rachel Hutchens believes there's a better way.

"If you can't do your job in 40 hours, there's too many things in your job." — Rachel 

In this episode of Nonprofit CEO SPARK, Marcia sits down with Rachel Hutchens, Executive Director of Bluff Lake Nature Center, to discuss how she's intentionally built a culture where people feel valued, trusted, and excited to come to work. 

From growing her organization from four employees to a thriving team, leading an $8.5 million capital campaign, and taking two parental leaves along the way, Rachel shares the practical leadership decisions that made sustainable growth possible.

If you're looking to build a healthier culture without sacrificing results, this conversation is full of actionable ideas you can start applying today.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• How modeling healthy boundaries gives your team permission to do the same.
• Practical policies every nonprofit should consider before they need them.
• How trust, transparency, and clear communication create psychological safety.
• Why investing in your people before periods of rapid growth leads to stronger organizational performance.
• The leadership mindset that helped Rachel successfully navigate a major capital campaign while empowering her team to step into greater ownership.

Connect with Rachel Hutchens on LinkedIN.

Learn more about Rachel's work and Bluff Lake Nature Center by visiting their website.

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Follow Marcia on LinkedIn → linkedin.com/in/marciabeckner 

Visit the Culture CARES Website → culturecares.com 

Explore the Podcast → culturecares.com/podcast

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome back to the Nonprofit CEO Spark Podcast. I'm Marcia Beckner, your host. Today's guest is Rachel Hutchins, Executive Director of Bluff Lake Nature Center, and someone who's on a mission to make both nature and community more accessible for everyone. A Colorado native, Rachel has spent more than a decade in the nonprofit sector leading organizations that inspire curiosity, learning, and connection. Since becoming the executive director of Bluff Lake Nature Center in 2018, she's helped expand educational programs, increase access for diverse communities, and lead an ambitious $8.5 million campus transformation that will impact generations to come. But what I love most is that despite overseeing major growth initiatives, Rachel's favorite days are still the ones spent exploring nature with kids, searching for animal bones, hunting for insects, and helping young people discover the wonder that's been right in front of them all along. Rachel, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Me too. I've been so excited for this conversation. So, Rachel, when people hear that you've led Bluff Lake through significant growth, expanded its programs, increased accessibility, and launched an $8.5 million capital campaign, it's easy to focus on your success with the outcomes. But I'd love to go back to your earlier years as an executive director. What did those first few years really feel like? And what were some of the leadership challenges you faced that nobody could have fully prepared you for?

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Well, like a lot of nonprofit executive directors, I had no idea I was going to be a nonprofit executive director. So I was pretty unprepared just for everything related to the role. I started at Bluff Lake as the education director. And I think those first few months working as a staff member of the organization was really valuable because I got to experience like, hey, this organization has all this potential, but there's all of these back-end problems that are happening with the systems or lack of communication. And then I actually got the chance to step into the ED role and fix all of those things that I had problems with. And my goal from the beginning was really just to build an organization that I wanted to work for, or that I'd be excited for a friend to have that culture in their workplace. And so I just got started.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

So you mentioned culture. So was that kind of intuitive? Like, I just want to build a place where my friend would love to work, or I would love to work. Like, is that instinctive, or is that something that you were taught?

SPEAKER_00 2:52

I think it was more instinctive. I was lucky to have worked for several great organizations in the past that had really strong cultures with leaders that I really believed in and cared about, but also was experienced enough in nonprofits to see that it was a lot of nonprofits were the opposite, that people were going into toxic cultures and they were preaching this mission that wasn't matching like what was happening to all of their staff inside. So I think I was just mentally careful about it from the beginning that I wanted to build something. Um, I also early on saw the cost of what losing staff was like and how long it took to get a new person up to um the same level and to get someone comfortable. And so retention became a really important focus for me. I had a really small team of only there were four of us. And so thinking about how I can keep those people around because every time we lose someone, we take a big step back.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Right. And so you had four people back when you started in this role. How many people now?

SPEAKER_00 4:02

We currently have 25 um staff during the summer season because we hire so many seasonal staff. There are 13 of us year-round. So it's gone from four to 13.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

And how would you describe the culture today?

SPEAKER_00 4:17

I think that the culture is one that people feel very listened to and valued, and that they can, we are all people first, uh, and we're here and so lucky that we get to work for this organization. But we really, as an organization, value our time off, um being able to step away, boundaries, and all of those things that allow us to really come to work and be present and excited and happy to be there.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

And what is a key ingredient to people being excited and happy to be there? Like you mentioned boundaries, you mentioned a few things, and it sounds like you really think about the culture that you like design it how you want it versus it's just a culture by default, and people can do anything they want, treat people however they want, and there's no like standards or or quality measurements around it. Like, how do you how do you do that?

SPEAKER_00 5:15

So I mentioned that I started at Bluffflake as the education director. So my background is all in education and informal education, working with students and kids. And a huge thing in that world is modeling. And so, to me, the best way to build the culture that I wanted and to uh standardize and normalize boundaries and things like that was to model those behaviors in myself and to set those boundaries and so that staff um, I like for example, I don't check my email on the weekend, all weekend, and I normalize that so my staff don't feel like that's an expectation for them that they need to be checking email on the weekend. And I know there are tips and tools, and you can schedule emails ahead, and some people's schedules require them to do some hours on the weekend. I understand that, but by modeling it, it gives the staff permission to have those same behaviors and not have this like drastic difference between what leadership is doing and what they're doing.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

And is there, as you think back kind of the last eight years that you've been the executive director there, can you think of any like mistakes that were made or lessons learned where because it's never a straight line, right? It's always kind of trial and error, especially as there's not really like formal executive director training typically. You kind of got to feel your way through it sometimes. So can you tell us about like any mistakes or lessons learned?

SPEAKER_00 6:44

I think there's been so many, and part of it is that when you step in, you're constantly learning, you're constantly being faced with employees that force you to make a new policy that then is better for all of the future employees. So I can think of moments when even before the pandemic, that we had employees wanting to work from home. And so I had to develop a work from home policy. But then we had that when going into the pandemic, which was incredible because we already had that system in place. But a lot of the policies that we've created have been reactive in times, and I um am learning how important it is to set that policy up before you're in that moment where you reactively need to make a policy in order to fix some outcome. Um, but a lot of things like that, as a small nonprofit, it's not like you just get handed this big policy notebook that covers every single situation that could ever happen. So we've had to build a lot of that out.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

So, so there's a lot of executive directors listening right now, and they're like, So, and I like to make this very actionable and practical for people. Off the top of your head, are there like a couple, two, three policies that you think that people should have ahead of time, but they haven't thought of it because they haven't been faced with the situation yet? Like, what's been the most important policies that you wish you had ahead of time and now you have them?

SPEAKER_00 8:12

That's a great question. I think some of the policies that I've built that I think are the most helpful for our staff are related to comp time, overtime, and how 40 hours is met, and making sure that that expectation is very clear for everyone because I saw in my organization and others people working 60, 80 hours, and then they'd leave and feel like they needed to be compensated for this 400-hour bank of hours that they had collected in comp time. And that isn't good for them. It's not good for the organization to have to pay that out. So we developed really strong policies around like how much comp time could you have? What does comp time even mean? Who can accrue that versus overtime? Um, and partnering with, we work with Employers Council, who helps us a lot with our policies. So making sure, even as a small nonprofit, that we have someone legally looking at these things to make sure we're not just making stuff up. Um, that's a big one. Another one that I feel strongly about is a language differential policy that we created for our staff so that if they're using language um in their job and it's not a requirement that they're compensated for that. And it's not just um being taken advantage of that they speak another language.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Oh, okay. So for bilingual staff, yeah. You offer extra pay?

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Yes, because it's often that's a skill that often is taken advantage by employers, like, oh, this person can speak Spanish, so let's have them do all of our translations, even though that's not in their job description. So if people have that skill and are being asked to use it by Bluff Lake, that they're compensated for that work.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Okay, that's awesome. Well, yeah, I hadn't even heard of that before. So that's a really great, you know, tip that people can take into consideration. Um, I I hear from a lot of leaders, and we have a lot of conversations around Gen Z staff. And I think you have some Gen Z staff a lot, right? How do you think about the best way to manage and lead Gen Z staff in today's day and age?

SPEAKER_00 10:26

I that's I know kind of a loaded a lot of people have feelings about it. Honestly, in my experience, um I've loved working with our Gen Z staff. I have not had challenges related to like them as a group. And I think that it's partially because we've set really clear expectations from the beginning. And um, like the boundaries thing is so important to Gen Z as a generation that people have boundaries and that they're respected. And so, again, the fact that that's modeled in leadership, that I have boundaries, it gives my Gen Z staff the ability to also have boundaries. But then I don't feel like they're unreasonable. So protecting that they have a weekend and that they're not asked to work on a weekend when that's not part of their job description. Um, and maybe part of me it's because I am I always legally am thinking about like, hey, if someone's doing work that's not matching their job description, that's a problem. So I really make sure that the job descriptions are very accurate to what it is. And that way when there are problems, I can just point back to it and say, hey, this is this is what you agreed to. And if it's not working out, it's not working out. Um but we have, I think the good culture here also just like promotes people being excited and wanting to come work here. Um another piece is like I recognized early that we're a nonprofit that's never gonna be able to pay people what they would make if they worked, you know, in finance. But what are all the things that we can offer that help culture is like a soft benefit that can be added on to a person's salary that has a huge value? And so things like having snacks in um our office and getting to know the staff and asking them questions about themselves and boundaries and all of these things, they make it so that even a person that is offered a job for $10,000 more a year might question whether or not that's worth it because of what they have.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

Yeah, the day-to-day experience at work matters so much. And it also sounds like with your high focus on retention, that once you have people that are really productive and helpful and moving the mission forward and easy to work with, meaning that they're easy to get along with, um, and that you know, the the chemistry between everyone is working, that your focus on retention and boundaries is really a successful strategy for you.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

And a lot of that came from decisions that we made at the board level and investments that we got from funders in professional development for our staff. So continuing to provide them educational opportunities, conferences, leadership training, and giving them those things. And look, I understand that Bluff Lake only has a certain amount of growth that you can have because we have a small team. And I love when one of my staff gets a super awesome job and goes out into the ecosystem of nonprofits and then is a Bluff Lake fangirl for the rest of their life, you know? And I want to build staff that get to that point and then can like take off and do great things, but I want to take get as much from them as I can while they're part of Bluff Lake. So that professional development is just a huge investment that we can make in them. And then they leave so much to us from what they learn.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Yeah. And you never know, they'll come probably come back as a donor or a volunteer or future board member, you know. Like treating the staff as you would treat um the community that you serve with the highest most respect. And obviously, mutual respect is an expectation too.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

And I find that often in nonprofits, and I know this is something people talk about that we care so much about our clients and the community, and we treat them a certain way, and then the staff are treated a completely different way, and there's that disconnect between like no one, none of our community would want to know that the staff is unhappy or miserable or not enjoying their job. They would want it to be a good culture and for everyone to be happy, even if that meant that there were slightly less programs or slightly less fundraising that was happening. Um, because we all want each other to be our best selves.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Yeah, I feel like that's the whole purpose of work is to become your best self and help other people. I want to pivot to a topic that I know is top of mind for most of our listeners here, including you and me. And I want to ask you like just when reflecting on the sector as a whole, what is one norm that you'd like to see evolve that's been generally accepted in our community?

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Um the idea that executive directors should work 60 to 80 hours a week and that that's normal and expected. And if you're not doing that, that means you don't care, or just this idea that, well, I have to do that. There's too much work, I have to do that. Um, I think that is a beautiful thing if you have the time and ability to do that, but I just really don't think it sets up the organization well for a sustainable moving forward because the next person who steps into your role is not going to be able to fill the 30 shoes that you are wearing. And if you can't do for any of your staff, if you can't do your job in 40 hours, there's too many things in your job. And you need to remove them, delegate them, um, change the way that you're structuring it. And so I just I really feel like in leadership, we often think, well, I can't become an executive director because I don't have 60 hours that I could give to this. It's doable. It it's not impossible to work 40 hours a week. And then we also are expecting our staffs to work 40 hours a week, and we want them to do that so we're not paying overtime so that they don't get burnt out. But if we're not modeling that behavior, what example do they have to do that? So they're gonna feel expected to work 45, 50 hours a week, and then we get burnt out and we leave, and that's not good for the organization. So, yeah, that's the soapbox that I'll have.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Yeah. And so walk us through like practically. You just went through a massive capital campaign. And tell me about like how you thought about culture before, during, and what's kind of the result today based on how you thought about it strategically.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

I am so proud of the team that we had during our capital campaign and during construction, because had we not had as strong a culture as we did, had staff left in the middle of construction during that year, things would have been disastrous. My time was so focused on the big picture construction, working with the contractor, the fundraising. If I was dealing with HR also, you know, my brain would have imploded. So I was so thankful that I had that team. And I think that we had it was important that before construction started, we had built a really good foundation. So we had staff that had been there for several years in all of the key positions. So everyone kind of knew the ropes, they knew where how things were going to change and how to be flexible. They also really valued my time and they knew when to elevate things to me versus when to handle things themselves. And I think that's a big piece of our of culture, is that staff feel respected enough to take ownership over different things and over different projects. And I have also had two children during this capital campaign. So I've taken two parental leaves. Um, so I'm really thankful that the organization was strong enough and had the systems for me to be able to do that. But it also those gave the staff really wonderful chances to step up and to be leaders and to show each other and the board what they could do, and they were compensated for that time, the staff that stepped into my role. So I think that by the time we came to the capital campaign in construction, people just had a lot of confidence that they could handle things. And it wasn't like Rachel's the only one that can fix things, we need Rachel to answer every question. Um, I really delegated a lot, and that gave the staff such great professional development, and then our team as a whole just a lot of confidence. But we were for sure exhausted after construction and the campaign, and I communication had gotten more challenging. And so now we're moved into our new facility and just really I'm trying to focus a lot on like wow, we get to work here now in this amazing space that we built together. And how can I make this like the best place for you to work that you're so excited to come every day? And that you can then in turn give a hundred percent of your time and effort to the mission, and you're not focused or thinking about like, well, you know, I'm not gonna give my all because I'm upset about this PTO thing or I don't feel valued. Um, so that's really my role now, or a thing I'm focusing on.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

And so you mentioned communication. How how do you not just think about like communication being really a key to success, healthy communication? Like, do you have specific habits or behaviors or things that you do that really helps build, like mend any communication misunderstandings and just keep open channels of information flowing back and giving people that agency to really own their own pieces and also cross-collaborate with each other? That's on a like a very loaded question, but communication is boiling it down to that so many of us really are challenged with communicating with our teams. What do you do that's different?

SPEAKER_00 21:14

I think that I'm a total geek about the Clifton Strengths Finder. Um, and I whenever we have new employees come in, they take that assessment and I spend some time looking at it and I try to really understand individual communication styles for different people. I ask, I send out surveys that have very specific information about like which one of these three things are gonna respond to quickest. And people know that about each other too. So that really helps us be able to say, you know, this is where if I send you an email, this is like official communications that I need you to read. Um, it's gonna have the most in depth information. But if I need you to respond quick. I'm going to be sending you a text. And so understanding how people communicate and how they process that information is important. And doing that before we got into construction was important because I didn't have time to learn all of that on the fly, like while we were going through it. But there was also the whole communication piece with the community and with my board and with like there was just I was kind of in the role when I had to talk, I had to transmit information to everyone. And understanding what types of com information people needed to know was hard. And it definitely was a learning curve. And I feel like really the community was just so excited about what we were doing that any information they were hungry for.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Did you ever find a time where someone was upset because they didn't get the information in time or they didn't get to give their feedback before a decision was made?

SPEAKER_00 22:58

Yes. Yeah. I think that with construction, so many decisions were being made in every moment. And we that again was my job was to make sure that the right people were in the room for the right conversations. So if we're having a conversation about how this space is going to be used, making sure somebody from the education staff is there and maybe a board member is there that has a perspective because they're a teacher. So now that we're here, it like is working really well. And things, there aren't many changes that I would make to the actual design. But there were certainly moments where something had to be decided fast. And that's part of leadership, is that I have to know when is it a decision that I just need to make and when it is when is it a decision that I need to involve other people.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

And how do you set up the culture in advance like you did and set the foundation by understanding people's individual strengths and communication styles as an example? Because a lot of leaders will make split decisions because they they need to, or fast decisions, and then their team is mad at them because they didn't feel like they got to weigh in. How do you how do you successfully do this? What you're doing is very, it's very challenging. I feel like it's kind of you know, second nature to you to be really intuitive about other people and when they need to have a voice into a decision or not. But is there anything concrete you can share to other people where it may be like they've just been struggling, like they make a decision, a leadership decision fast, but then their staff is upset at them. Like, how do how do you smooth that path?

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Yeah, I think it it's gotten harder for me as our staff has grown because I'm not directly supervising. There was a time that I was meeting one-on-one with every staff member, and now that's just not possible. But I think there's a lot of transparency within our organization about how we all spend our time and what we're doing. So, all of our time, we all keep timesheets, even the staff members that are exempt. So I keep a timesheet, and it's more showing here's the eight things that I worked on today. And any staff have has access to see those things. And I also because I took those leaves, a lot of staff got to see what my job is day to day, what it's like. And for the most part, the feedback I received was thank goodness you're doing that, and I don't have to do that. And so I think it gave the staff a sense of I don't want to be making all those decisions. Like, yeah, maybe I wasn't involved in picking out the color of the wall in the classroom. Like Rachel made that decision. But I did let the director level staff pick out the color that is in their offices. Um and I I think that they understand that there are decisions that just need to happen. And when people are frustrated with decisions, they also feel comfortable coming to me and telling me about that and explaining that they think that something was wrong. And I try really hard, like psychological safety, thinking about what are the ways that I could show the staff that I've heard what they said. So it's not just that I'm sitting here listening, but like I'm also thinking about 10 other things. I'm listening to what they say, and then I follow up with them the next day or a week later saying, here's like the actionable thing that I did based on this. And and it's not always I made the change that you wanted me to make, but I looked back at the budget and like this is why I can't do that. Um so I think just being transparent and usually I've found in life that if you show people the reasons why you do something and then they trust you, like that's all they really need to see. They just want to know you've thought it through.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Yes. Well, I think you bring up the real the real keys to success here, which are you've built the trust. You build trust by being transparent. You follow through when people ask for something different or have a concern about something, you follow through with them afterwards. And the way trust can be broken so easily is that you just nod your head when someone's talking and nothing ever comes of it. Whether they got their way or not, it really isn't the point. You know, it's really getting back to them, like you said, about why we're going in a certain direction and answering any questions and um being a really, really thoughtful listener, what you're doing. Rachel, I just I've been so excited to have you on this podcast. Truth be told, I only really invite people on here who are focused on culture first as a way, as a means to get to their mission, to reach their fundraising goals, to build a team that's really thriving, where people in our nonprofit sector are thinking about health and well-being as central to the mission for their staff, their leaders, their board, everybody concerned. And that translates into successful, uh, sustainable organization that's really fulfilling the mission it exists to create. So thank you so much for coming on here. Is there anything else that we that you thought of while we were talking or that you wanted to bring up that could help executive directors and CEOs really lead and be their best?

SPEAKER_00 28:52

I thank you so much for having me. First of all, I really respect you and everything that you're doing. And I totally agree that culture is so important and it's like it just brings everything else follows from it, and success follows from it, and also failure follows from it if you don't have good culture. Um, so it should be something that funders are looking at more. There should be questions and grant applications that let you talk about your culture of your organization. I wish there was more quantifiable ways, other than just retention, that we were able to say, like, this is how good our culture is. So I'm always on the lookout for those kinds of things. And I challenge funders to ask those kinds of questions when they're talking to grantees.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

And and to fund types of initiatives that can build a stronger culture.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Totally. Yeah, that's not a thing that is easy to get a grant for um sometimes professional development, but it takes time, energy, and money to do this. Um, but it's also you can do it and build it on so many small things. It's not like you need to do a $20,000 thing. Um, it's the day-to-day.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

And if you think about how much it costs to replace staff and to have that turnover, it should be a no-brainer that this is a better investment.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

It is hundreds of thousands of dollars if you lose two staff people. Yeah. Yeah. I yeah. The the research is out there. We just need to talk about it more and really make that clear connection between a healthy culture and program outcomes.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Yep. Great.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

Thanks, Rachel. Well, as I've talked about a little bit on the podcast, I'm launching the fall ED CEO Mastermind, which is a 10-week group cohort program. I'm starting small. Rachel, you're a part of it. I'm so excited. Um, doing two different groups of 10 executive directors. And one group is Denver Central kind of or Denver and surrounding area as a hybrid group. And another is fully virtual, so that if you're not, if you don't live in uh Denver or the front range, that you can still access this level of support of really connecting with other people in your shoes, going through similar challenges, and and really support and help each other and talk about best practices and all of that. So if you've been feeling lonely or isolated as an ED or CEO, please, please contact me and we'll get you connected into one of these groups. Rachel, thanks again for joining you.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

Thanks for listening to today's episode of Nonprofit CEO Spark. If you're ready to turn burnout into boundaries and build a healthy, happy culture where everyone, including you, can thrive. Visit culturecares.com to learn how I support nonprofit organizations like yours. If this episode brought you value, share it with a fellow leader navigating stress and overwhelm. And remember, you are meant for great things and you don't have to burn out to prove it. Until next time, keep leading with courage and confidence.