This week my guest was Shanna Hocking, founder and CEO of Hocking Leadership and author of One Bold Move a Day. Shanna spent more than 20 years raising money across public, private, and Ivy League universities and academic medicine before leaving the vice president track to build a firm of her own. What she kept noticing across all of those places was that we are very good at producing expert fundraisers and almost never taught how to actually lead. Closing that gap is her whole focus now, and it gives this episode its title: invest in leaders, and the results will follow.
Watch the full-length version on YouTube (45 mins)
The story from the episode that’s stayed with me goes back to where it started for her. At 18, on scholarship and financial aid, she took a $10-an-hour job in her college’s development office and got pulled in to help with a major donor event. As a student ambassador, they let her stand in the back of the room. She describes it as one of those movie moments where everything goes fast and slow and the music swells, and what hit her was small and enormous at the same time: “I can create meaning out of money.” She knew right then this was the work she was meant to do. I love that the spark was not a campaign goal or a spreadsheet. It was watching philanthropy create access for someone, and deciding she wanted to spend a career doing that for others.
If our profession is so good at building fundraisers, why are we so reluctant to build leaders? Can a field that trains us to put the mission first ever get comfortable letting its people be visible and advocate for their own value? And what opens up when a leader is brave enough to sit at the table and admit they do not have it all figured out, then ask what they are missing?
Big Themes This Week
We train expert fundraisers but rarely train leaders, and that gap is what holds teams back. Invest in the people and the results follow.
Networking is service, not transaction. The joy is in understanding what matters to someone else and helping create opportunities for them.
Visibility is part of the job. Leadership opportunities are not handed to you, they are created by you, which means making your contributions known.
Self-advocacy is not bragging when you connect your work to the organization’s goals and outcomes. Good work does not speak for itself.
The strongest leaders have the courage to say “I don’t have it all figured out” and to ask their teams what they are missing.
Team Discussion Questions
Where on our team are we developing fundraisers but not developing leaders, and what would it take to change that?
Whose contributions on our team are going unseen because we have been taught that good work speaks for itself?
What stops us from being visible about our wins, and how could we frame them around institutional outcomes instead of ego?
When was the last time a leader here admitted they did not have the answer and asked for input? What happened?
How do we make room for people to be fully themselves, even “too much,” in service of the mission?
