When Merging Means Winning: Redefining Organizational Success with Bethany Robertson

What if the ultimate success of your organization isn't staying independent forever, but creating a cultural shift that outlasts the institution itself? Bethany Robertson, co-founder of the I Do Foundation and Parents Together Foundation, shares her journey through organizational mergers and the lessons learned about redefining success.

The I Do Foundation pioneered charitable giving at weddings in 2000, creating a cultural norm and generating over $1 million before merging with a larger organization. Bethany discusses the emotional complexity of navigating transitions as a founder, the challenge of moving from philanthropic funding to earned revenue sustainability, and why letting go of organizational independence can be the right strategic choice.

We explore the critical difference between thinking of a process as a "merger" versus an "acquisition"—and how waiting too long can shift the power dynamics. Bethany shares lessons about negotiating when your assets have declined, the importance of separating founder identity from organizational identity, and why this moment demands flexibility in how we think about institutional work. Whether you're considering a merger, struggling with sustainability questions, or wondering how to balance organizational and personal wellbeing, this conversation offers honest perspectives on organizational evolution.

Guest Bio:

Bethany Robertson is a social entrepreneur with over two decades of experience. She co-founded the I Do Foundation in 2000, creating a movement around charitable giving at weddings. More recently, she served as co-founder and co-director of Parents Together Foundation. Bethany has championed co-leadership models and flexible organizational structures throughout her career, and currently focuses on local community organizing in Washington, DC.

Note: Host Monisha Kapila served on the I Do Foundation board starting in 2006 and brings her perspective to the conversation.

Resources Mentioned:

Lean Impact by Ann Mei Chang - Brings Lean Startup philosophy into the social sector

Email: podcast@leadershipbypurpose.com

Keywords: nonprofit leadership, organizational merger, social entrepreneurship, nonprofit sustainability, founder journey, co-leadership, organizational restructuring, I Do Foundation, Parents Together Foundation, nonprofit transition, leadership identity, grassroots organizing

Transcript

Monisha Kapila (00:01.418)
I am very excited to welcome today's guest to the Leadership by Purpose podcast. We have Bethany Robertson here to speak with us. Hi. Bethany is an amazing social entrepreneur. Back in 2000, she served as co-founder and executive director of the I Do Foundation. And then more recently, she was co-founder and co-director of Parents Together Foundation.

Bethany Robertson (00:09.806)
Bye.

Monisha Kapila (00:27.574)
I first met Bethany when I joined the board of the I Do Foundation in 2006 and she has been a friend, a mentor to me and I really wanted to have this conversation with her about restructuring because of our experience with the I Do Foundation. So welcome.

Bethany Robertson (00:43.79)
Thanks, Monisha I'm so happy to see you. Great to talk.

Monisha Kapila (00:45.88)
Yes, thank you. Well, first, can you tell us what's the story behind how you started the I Do Foundation? And what was the impetus for that?

Bethany Robertson (00:57.87)
Well, it was a long time ago now and it was back in the early days of affiliate marketing and people being able to create their own website. So way back in 2000, right? And I met a couple of folks at a conference and we started talking. We were all a bit younger and we were in the phase of going to everyone that we knew having their weddings. And we were talking about it and we were like, gosh, we have all these friends who care so much about different causes, but

they get to their weddings and it's just like they pour money out. And so the idea that we came up with was really simple, but it was just how do we make it normal for people to think about giving back at the time that they're getting married? And that was how we got started.

Monisha Kapila (01:41.314)
Yes, and that's actually how I found the organization because I was engaged and when I was looking to join a board and I learned about the I Do Foundation, I was really excited to be part of it.

Bethany Robertson (01:46.808)
Waaah!

Bethany Robertson (01:52.416)
And we got so lucky to have you join us, Monisha.

Monisha Kapila (01:54.266)
Thank you. And, you know, when I joined, I learned a lot about the nonprofit sector. It was my first board role. Yes. As well as, you know, how you were navigating the organization going from a stage where it had received a lot of philanthropic funding to then being expected to be sustainable, which isn't always easy. so I'm curious, you know,

Bethany Robertson (02:02.69)
I know, I remember.

Bethany Robertson (02:12.972)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Monisha Kapila (02:18.734)
What were some of the things that made you start thinking about mergers or other types of restructuring?

Bethany Robertson (02:25.806)
Yeah, so we were, we started in a time when there was a huge amount of funding, or at least more than there was, there is today, on sort of how do we build the philanthropic sector? How do we expand the pie? How do we think about more sustainability? And so there were some key funders who came in early on that helped us and kind of got us up and running, especially Echoing Green Foundation, among others Sardna. And so we had...

a vision of being able to become self-sustaining that as many nonprofits are now figuring out, you try that path. It's possible to have a portion of your revenue, you know, earned and generated, but it's really, really hard to do 100 % of your work totally income generated. So what we were finding over time was that as the film traffic money was shrinking,

the earned revenue wasn't really filling in enough to be able to take on the full burden of the budget that we were doing. So honestly, that was kind of the spark. And it was really hard to sit with that because it felt like, what are we doing wrong that we can't attract more dollars or that our business model isn't quite profitable yet. And eventually we just kind of came to the conclusion that we could still do the work, but in a different way.

were we to work with a larger organization. And over time, I have come to understand that what we accomplished was like creating a norm and a behavior around shared well giving at weddings. And that that piece was what enabled us to then fold into something bigger. So it was almost a proof of concept in the initial organization, but it was really, really hard and felt for a long time, like, my gosh, this is a defeat and it's not.

Monisha Kapila (04:20.258)
Yes, I'm so glad you named that because I think that's one of the things from my own experience being a founder and I really came to you when I was thinking about launching Pro Inspire and there's this sense of we have to build something that's going to stay forever even though most nonprofits will say we want to put ourselves out of business but when that time actually comes of like,

Bethany Robertson (04:20.654)
I'm sure we'll talk more about that.

Bethany Robertson (04:31.788)
Yeah.

Monisha Kapila (04:45.238)
Now I think charitable giving is much more common as part of weddings. Like you created a norm, do you actually need the organization to do all of those pieces?

Bethany Robertson (04:55.31)
I love hearing you say that. And every once in a while I'll see, I love the New York Times wedding section, which is probably a, it's my silly pleasure on Sundays and also probably an offshoot of my work with the ID foundation. But every once in a while I see like, oh, and then their charity of choice was such and such. And to me that is the long-term success. When we started this, people,

Monisha Kapila (05:01.987)
Bye!

Bethany Robertson (05:21.752)
It was like very different time for weddings. People didn't have like their little cute wedding website and there wasn't easy ways to communicate with guests outside of the invitation. And so I felt like a lot of systems were just coming online at that moment and we really tapped them and we got a ton of media around it. And it felt like in the long-term that was the organizational impact on top of the million plus dollars we generated. But it was very...

long process internally to kind of come to terms with us.

Monisha Kapila (05:52.378)
Yeah, what are some of the things that helped you to navigate your own feelings around what it means to be a social entrepreneur or what you thought you wanted the organization to look like?

Bethany Robertson (06:03.266)
Well, I want to be clear when we went through the merger, I had actually stepped out of the organization and we had another executive director who really championed this process. And so I'm sure he would have lots of good things to say, or maybe some hard things to say about what it was like working with a board. but I do feel like I had a lot of good mentors and supporters, including board members, other board members like you, Monisha, who had a

bit of a bigger picture than what I did as a co-founder of the institution, who had poured in so much time and personal energy and lost wages and things like that. You know, when you're so deep inside, it's hard to see a clear path or to tell yourself any other story. So drawing on friends and mentors was critical.

Monisha Kapila (06:54.79)
And it's interesting because right now when I talk to lot of leaders who are considering this, oftentimes they don't feel like they can share that concept with board members or other people because of fear of what the response might be. that's part of why I wanted this season to focus on restructuring and like how do we normalize this conversation?

Bethany Robertson (07:04.812)
Yes.

Bethany Robertson (07:14.604)
Yeah, I feel like one of the things that I always tried to do within when I was an ED and as a board member after was to really be clear about always having three plans, right? There's the like, here's what we really hope is going to happen. We're going to generate all this new income. We're going to find other funders to support. Here's what we're kind of expecting the norm to be. And then of course, like, here's the backup. And I feel like it is really good to normalize that the backup.

may not be the forever we're our own institution. And to always kind of have on the table, if you're in a place where a merger restructuring might even be a potential in the next couple of years, to just have that in your pocket. Like our work would continue, but it might look different, it might be in a different form. And so even on institutions where I'm on their boards now, I like to keep bringing it up. And often people are like,

my God, no, like how could you say that? You think we're gonna fail? And it's like, no, this is just a reasonable path and we should be aware that it might be an option.

Monisha Kapila (08:21.251)
Yeah. What were some of the things that you started to look at when you eventually went down the merger path?

Bethany Robertson (08:29.534)
The first thing that we really worked on with the staff and the board was to look at, you know, who are parallel organizations for us. Being in this really niche giving space, it was clear that there were a lot of other online giving sites that could potentially be partners with us. And so really looking for places that were willing to be kind of experimental and more flexible in their approaches. And then also, of course, people that shared.

values with ours. I think that's one of the trickiest things to assess and also to get comfortable.

Monisha Kapila (09:08.472)
Yeah, how did you, firstly, what did you kind of identify as what values were important to find in a partner and how did you assess that?

Bethany Robertson (09:18.614)
a lot of conversations and meetings with partners. But one of the things that had been baked into our work from the beginning was not just making charitable giving possible at weddings, but also trying to shape where people might direct their resources to encourage them to think about justice related causes, as opposed to say, maybe just larger nonprofits that are kind of out there and pretty well funded in the marketplace already.

So one thing that was important to us was to find partners where we could continue to recommend groups so that if a couple came in and was choosing a nonprofit of their choice, that we might say, like, have you considered giving to this range of like equity causes, whether that was food security or children and family issues or health issues. So that was really critical to what we were hoping to do.

Monisha Kapila (10:13.082)
And what did you find when you started to look at kind of potential partners?

Bethany Robertson (10:21.268)
So I think the thing that a lot of folks run into is people want the assets, but they don't really want to share control. And that's a hard thing to kind of get your head around, especially as an entrepreneur who's had the weight of everything on their shoulders, but also the beauty of being able to have a lot of authority around the mission and ideas. And so...

I remember really clearly, I'm sure you remember some of these conversations coming into, as we had narrowed in on a potential partner. They were not really open to board seats or kind of additional staff leadership. And that got really tricky and was very difficult to navigate. I remember some of our board members just, you know, being frustrated to the point of like, well, screw it. Like, why are we even gonna do this?

We had to work through that and say like, well, what's our bet now? What's the best alternative? So I'm sure you remember some of those conversations pretty clearly.

Monisha Kapila (11:23.866)
Yeah, do. I, you know, since then, I've been involved with a few other organizations that have gone through mergers or shutdowns. And I feel like that there's never going to be a perfect solution. so being able to work through those difficult things and, you so what what did you all end up doing?

Bethany Robertson (11:49.334)
So it was a while ago. So I'm trying to remember some of the details. You know, I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, it becomes critical that your staff is taken care of. So we knew we had a couple of people who were essential to merge into the new entity or the kind of connected entity. So we had to do we, you prioritize that. I think we came up with a couple of key areas that were really essential. But I

I do remember at some point we had to grapple with the fact that we were thinking of it as a merger and they were thinking of it as an acquisition. And I feel like that's one of the huge take homes for me, even all these years later of the process was that we waited a little too long and then had less flexibility and negotiating power. So our assets had really declined and we were in more of a time constraint. And so we just weren't able

to make many demands, you know, it was almost, we had to really fight to make sure that the mood in the room wasn't like we're doing you a favor, but more here's a valuable program that has an opportunity to continue and here is all the knowledge and resources that we're bringing with us, even if our cashflow is declining. So I think the early upfront is really critical.

Monisha Kapila (13:07.45)
Yeah. Well, and I remember it.

Yeah, and I remember that in the end, actually two board members from the IDU Foundation went and joined the board of the larger organization and similarly some staff did. Any kind of lessons on how you were able to negotiate those? And you weren't actually involved with negotiation a lot of it, right?

Bethany Robertson (13:17.75)
Yes.

Bethany Robertson (13:22.99)
which was a huge success. Yeah, it was really important. Yes.

Bethany Robertson (13:35.446)
I wasn't, we ended up appointing some of our board members to other board members to lead that, which I think was good. I think it was good to get the founder out of the room because we were able to sort of come together and decide what our priorities were and where we had room to negotiate and not. And then I think it was actually a real positive to other people in those spaces because it felt so personal, right?

Monisha Kapila (14:01.754)
Were you but was it positive for you? Were you okay not being involved in the negotiations?

Bethany Robertson (14:09.356)
Well, as you know, I was also in the middle of a personal health crisis. So it was a huge relief that I had so much trust in our board that they could take things on and really run with it. And we also had the support of our ED who was fully on board with it as well. So it was a plus and a minus. I was grateful. And then also it's really hard not to be there all the time.

Monisha Kapila (14:35.438)
Yeah. Yeah.

Bethany Robertson (14:37.836)
but it wasn't something I could do, which is the beauty of building boards that you really can trust around you.

Monisha Kapila (14:42.946)
Yes, and I think it's interesting when people join boards, they often are just thinking about like the upsides, but there are the sort of the challenges like when an ED leaves or when you are having to navigate restructuring and the board has to play a bigger role.

Bethany Robertson (15:02.526)
Yes, I think that is, yeah, I'm thinking about a lot of boards I'm on right now and I think there's so much investment that needs to be made by the EDs and it's hard to do because you don't need them until you need them and then you really need your board members. So that's another great lesson learned, I think.

Monisha Kapila (15:24.152)
your personal values impact the way you approach this transition?

Bethany Robertson (15:33.664)
That's a good question.

Bethany Robertson (15:39.16)
So what I tried to be guided by, even when it was tricky, was just how does the work continue? How does the mission live on, even if it looks slightly different or is branded differently or maybe flows a little differently in terms of the process? So keeping that, that was sort of the thing that enabled me to let go of it enough to have it go and sit somewhere else. And then I think...

Taking care of people was always critical. And so that piece was also just kind of a non-negotiable, I think, with the boards. And then the opportunity for additional leadership to be able to keep shepherding the idea was sort of a, that was values driven as well, I would say.

Monisha Kapila (16:25.304)
Yeah. And how did you communicate with staff? Did they know that discussions were happening or did you wait until it was a later stage?

Bethany Robertson (16:36.398)
I think now as a more mature leader, I probably would have engaged the full staff earlier. The executive director was really on board. He was a part of pitching different potential partners. I have learned over time that radical transparency can be super powerful. And honestly, I don't recall exactly how and when we brought other team members along, but

Looking back now, I'm pretty sure that it should have been sooner. So I'd be curious what they would have to say about it. It was a small team, so there wasn't too much delay between the of thinking and the sharing, but I am sure that they probably would have appreciated more input earlier.

Monisha Kapila (17:23.662)
Yeah, I think it's such an important lesson because oftentimes when organizations are considering this, they're in sense of we have to really keep this confidential and not share it with others. But as you said, like people often know if there's financial changes or other things happening and so engaging them sooner could really be helpful both for the organization and for the folks who would be impacted.

Bethany Robertson (17:35.906)
Yeah.

Bethany Robertson (17:44.686)
Yeah.

Bethany Robertson (17:52.182)
Absolutely. And ultimately they were a key part of the transition because so much of it was a technical program. so they were certainly involved before it was formalized. And also they probably could have come in and guided us better. But I do remember a fear that, if we admit that this is a possibility that, you maybe they'll jump ship. But people should have that opportunity to decide that, right? So.

I think I have learned a lot in the intervening years.

Monisha Kapila (18:23.694)
Yeah, and you you mentioned like this was a long time ago. Since then, you have launched another organization, you have been involved with many different things. How did this experience with the I Do Foundation shape your leadership or how you approach new entities?

Bethany Robertson (18:42.312)
That's a great question. I am aware that having gone through it, it doesn't feel like a failure anymore. And so when I casually mentioned to other leaders like, have you considered a merger? That they're like, no. I'm like, it's okay. Like, we can talk about it. So I do feel like I'm not afraid of saying the thing. And

I wish that more people were willing to do so, which is one of the reasons I'm so excited that you're doing these podcasts and thinking about these questions of like, how do we make it not just an end stage move, but a potential, you know, an opportunity to increase your impact. I think the other thing that it's helped me work through is a real separation of my identity as a human and a person with many different facets.

from just like the person who started this thing. It was my first thing I had ever started and I felt so tied to it. And that was just, that's not good. It's not good in any way, either for your impact, for your staff relationships, for your outside of work relationships. So I hope that I've evolved a lot from that. And part of it was having to let it go and to see it in another home and to be okay with that.

Monisha Kapila (20:07.502)
That's something I'm still navigating, you know, just like 18 months since I left Pro Inspire and still figuring out, yeah, still figuring out who am I outside of this organization. And I still get to work with the organization and the leaders. So I feel really deeply connected, but also realizing like I'm I have a whole life beyond that. And I think as founders, as social entrepreneurs, it can be hard to remember that.

Bethany Robertson (20:12.748)
Yeah, how are you doing?

Bethany Robertson (20:21.87)
Mm-hmm.

Bethany Robertson (20:30.401)
What?

Bethany Robertson (20:37.294)
it can because you're so deeply invested. How are you making that shift in your head?

Monisha Kapila (20:40.803)
Yeah.

I think, yeah, I mean, some of it actually even part of why I wanted to launch this podcast was having a way to connect with people that wasn't about the work I was doing at my organization, but just like having conversations that I enjoy. And that's part of the work that I.

Bethany Robertson (20:57.987)
Huh?

Monisha Kapila (21:02.636)
appreciated at Pro Inspire was being involved with people navigating really difficult things. so, so I think I'm trying to find my identity in other ways. And also just appreciating the kind of full life I can have and focus on things like my family and my health in ways that I wasn't giving myself space to before.

Bethany Robertson (21:12.366)
Yeah.

Bethany Robertson (21:26.4)
Yeah, even when you were asking, how should I introduce you today? It's like a little heart palpitation of wait, but who am I? You know, I'm the lady who's trying to learn to knit and who's spending more time with her 10 year old and who's walking the dog. You know, but what is my impact in the world and where am I focused? Like it's, it's so easy when you're a social entrepreneur to just be like, this is the thing I am and I do and I care about. And

to broaden that understanding of ourselves and to be okay with not necessarily having a leadership role can be a big transition for folks who are used to kind of always being at the front of the room. And it's a really good thing to experience, I will add.

Monisha Kapila (22:05.412)
Yeah.

Yes. Well, I'm thinking about like some of the lessons you've shared today for social entrepreneurs. One is like being open to the form and how it can evolve. And the other is thinking about who you are beyond the organization. Are there other lessons as you look back on the I Do Foundation, but also Parents Together Foundation like that you have for other social entrepreneurs around how they can approach these difficult questions.

Bethany Robertson (22:37.496)
Yeah, it's a time where we need real flexibility, right? I think this moment in particular, there's so much going on nationally, there's so much going on. Many of us in our personal lives are facing like unique threats. And so I have a lot of compassion for people who are leading organizations in this time. The things that have helped me get through always are having

peer relationships where you can get support. So I've been fortunate to be in a group with you for many, years. But to find people who are near peers, that has been just essential to survival. And I don't think I invested enough time in that earlier in my career, but that has been essential. I think the other thing that I know you're also interested in exploring is co-leadership models.

And that has been a huge learning in my life, like how to do that well, how to find people who compliment me. And I'm just so excited about that as a strategy overall for sustainability of the work and the people in our field. And yeah, I think a long, long, long time ago when I was a very early social entrepreneur working in

with parents together or sorry, with them, the I do foundation. had someone say to me, he had children. And I was like, how do you have children and be an entrepreneur? And he said, it's the rest of life that inspires my creativity and feels my work. And I remember I'd never thought of that before as a young entrepreneur, you know, before I was 30 even, and, you know, thinking about how to balance and.

The more I live, the more I see like how valuable that is and that it's by being proximate to our issues and by allowing ourselves to be in creative spaces that we are able to come up with new ideas and build new relationships that ultimately fuel the work we're trying to do. So I don't know, are we old enough to be giving advice about such lifespan questions? I'm not sure.

Monisha Kapila (24:53.152)
I so. Yeah, and I've had the chance to really witness how you've been able to do that, I think in such unique ways, like really leading into volunteering in your local community, in the schools, and saying like there's a role to fight for equity and justice in the day-to-day interactions you have. And I think that there's some real good lessons for people around that.

Bethany Robertson (25:22.21)
Yes, I think that another thing I'm sitting with at this stage in my career is, you know, I've worked for a very long time at trying to build and be up high and to have like that 50,000 foot view. And I am really appreciating a chance to step into a different place that's very local, especially in a moment where I think so much is about taking care of our community around us and being really

connected to people in our neighborhoods, in our schools, in our communities. And I feel like it's, I'm really grateful for the chance to be sitting in a different position and to, for example, I got a call from a national group the other day about signing off on something next, send it out to all your parents. I was like, this is ridiculous. This is completely not what we're thinking about or working on or relevant to our.

know, daily impact we're trying to have. And it's just, it's good to be sitting in different seats. And I'm grateful for this period to kind of experience that work at a different level to understand kind of those challenges in a different way.

Monisha Kapila (26:34.65)
Yeah, well, I think this question, going back to the topic of organizational restructuring, one of the things that I think about is we don't always need organizations to do the work. How we support others in our community, the relationships, and because nonprofits are under attack, we may need to be thinking very differently about how we do that work without the formal structure.

Bethany Robertson (26:48.085)
Yes.

Bethany Robertson (26:53.357)
Yeah.

Bethany Robertson (27:03.298)
That is such a great point. And I think the piece that is coming up most in my engagement right now is really, are we cultivating leadership, which I know is a topic you love. And institutions are critical, right? Of course, we know that there are places that are like able to aggregate information and connection. you know, I don't want to say like we don't need more community support and engagement of our nonprofits.

And this is really a moment where I'm seeing, especially in Washington, DC, again and again, people saying this needs to happen. And then they're going to do it. They feel like they're, they have an imperative to go do it. And, and then it becomes institutions jobs on us to follow, right? To create infrastructure around that. because that we need organizing in a massive way right now that's different than,

Monisha Kapila (27:51.384)
Mmm.

Bethany Robertson (28:01.462)
a lot of the top down that's happened for so long.

Monisha Kapila (28:04.066)
Yeah. Well, this has been such a great discussion about your own journey. And I know we took you back two decades. Yeah. Yeah. So I want to do our rapid fire questions that we ask each guest. So first, what's one book, podcast or research resource that has been valuable to you as a leader?

Bethany Robertson (28:11.822)
Way back, way, back. I'm glad that you were there with me all those years ago, Monisha.

Bethany Robertson (28:22.114)
Vates. Okay.

Bethany Robertson (28:31.188)
So I always say Lean Impact as my book of influence because I, for a long, long time, was the kind of girl who wanted to build the strategic plan for the next five years. And I love the Lean Startup philosophy. And I love that Lean Impact as a book has really taken those ideas around rapid iteration and deployment into the social sector. So that's one of my top books.

Monisha Kapila (28:58.936)
Yeah, that's a great one. And particularly, think right now, a lot of folks are saying, you we can't do strategic planning in these long term intervals. And so I really love thinking about the lean impact approach. The second question, what's one piece of advice you'd give to your younger self when stepping into a major transition?

Bethany Robertson (29:04.056)
We don't have time. Yeah.

Bethany Robertson (29:20.834)
Yeah, I think I would say do it earlier and don't be afraid. Sorry, that's two pieces. But I think maybe they are bridged together by the idea of like, look for the win for the idea, not just for the organization. Yeah.

Monisha Kapila (29:24.354)
Yeah. No, it's good though. I like both of those.

Monisha Kapila (29:36.346)
that's a powerful. And the last one, this is a fun question. What's one thing on your personal bucket list?

Bethany Robertson (29:46.712)
So I'm going to say this in public, even though I have no idea how I'm going to make it happen, because I really want accountability. I want to learn how to play jazz piano. I play the piano, but I want to learn how to play jazz. So I'm putting it out there sometime in the next 30 to 50 years.

Monisha Kapila (29:58.788)
Great. Yes.

Well, I'll check in with you next time I see you. See if you've made any progress. Bethany, thank you so much for being here, for sharing your story. I have learned so much from seeing you as an entrepreneur, as a leader, as a friend. So I'm really glad to have you on our podcast.

Bethany Robertson (30:04.43)
Please do. Please do. Thanks, Anisha.

Bethany Robertson (30:21.122)
Thanks for doing this work, Monisha. It's so important and I hope you can really help people see that there's so many different pathways to the impact that they want to have in the world. So thank you.

Monisha Kapila (30:30.938)
Thanks.