W hile so many frum nonprofits are dedicated to pulling people out of the dark how can they attract enough donor investments to keep the lights on?

Ozzie Burnham is the founder and CEO of Oztonish Consulting a management consulting firm based in Silver Spring Maryland for frum nonprofit organizations may have the answers. 

What I Do…

Our tagline is “Helping Do-Gooders Do Gooder.” The mouthful is that we help Jewish nonprofits optimize their resources using tools such as strategic planning departmental audits fund development and process improvement. In plain English: Your klal organization makes a meaningful difference every day — you lead the board of the community’s largest shul; or you’ve been in kiruv for years influencing hundreds of families; or your yeshivah is home to world-renowned talmidei chachamim. But you’re facing constant challenges — delivering on your mission managing your operation and attracting enough donor investment to keep the lights on. We review your current processes and then help you do more raise more and stress less.

How I Got Into This…

I cofounded a kiruv organization at the University of Maryland while I was in kollel at Ner Israel. I have a background in business an interest in systems and an appetite for finding better ways to do things so when our operation at UMD became part of MEOR the campus kiruv organization I became active in its national infrastructure. I loved it but after more than a decade of kiruv work at MEOR and four years serving as director of operations I decided it was time for me to make a broader impact by sharing my expertise with the hundreds of other Jewish organizations out there.

I’m In a Good Mood When…

I’m working with an organization’s stakeholders on its thorniest problems — breakdowns in leadership consistent statistical failure to deliver on mission looming financial collapse. The discussion is high stakes and intense but respectful. Everything’s on the table because the mission’s success is what’s most important. I know I’ll need to decompress to music on my train or flight back but in the moment I’m in flow.

What Every Frum Nonprofit Does Right…

Passionate commitment to the cause. It’s most inspiring to meet and support such a broad diversity of people with extraordinary commonalities: idealism mesiras nefesh ahavas Yisrael and ahavas Hashem. I get to watch it from a box seat every day in such a wild variety of ways. I once worked with a chassidishe Yid who did Jewish meditation with Fortune 500 execs — true story — and that kind of thing makes you kvell!

Something I Wish Every Frum Nonprofit Knew…

To quote Yogi Berra “If you don’t know where you’re going you’ll end up someplace else.” It’s incredible how much you can learn by asking simple yet fundamental questions about goals measurables structure and process. Some examples: “Does each team member know what success looks like for them? Is that measured and managed?” “Where and how do you drive innovation so you don’t continue to serve yesterday tomorrow?” I have yet to meet an organization that couldn’t get significant mileage off strategic review and planning.

Most Common Issue I Deal With Is…

If not the biggest problem fundraising is usually the most painful. The reality is that poor fundraising results are most often a symptom not a cause. If a development department is properly structured well trained and given the right tools it can and does make tracks. Think about it: every university hospital museum and even dog shelter has fundraisers. Last year about 73 000 fundraisers in the US raised over $373 billion. In an industry where results are everything — either you bring home the schmaltz or you don’t — 73 000 brought schmaltz and lots of it. There’s no way each of them is a gifted genius; they’re successful because they follow a process that’s been carefully developed over decades. Unfortunately far too few frum organizations consistently follow that process.

I Know It’ll Be a Rough Day If…

The boss comes out of hibernation. Leaders sometimes delegate our project to a staff member and check out. Then as we’re nearing completion they suddenly develop an intense interest in the project and want all sorts of adjustments made. Oy! If you run an organization please don’t do that. Your ounce of involvement over the full course of a project will prevent a pound of headache and heartburn in last-minute flip-flops.

The Best Part of the Job — and the Toughest…

Is in the words of Chazal: “Ein hadavar talui ela bi.” When you own your own firm you fry what you fish. There’s something extraordinarily rewarding and simultaneously enormously demanding about having ultimate achrayus for everything that takes place. I’m lucky to have a talented team but the bottom line responsibility for every client relationship every project and every invoice is on me. It’s had me davening some very long Shemoneh Esrehs but it’s also unlocked potential I’d never accessed before.

You’ll Never Believe It…

But in addition to consulting we provide an array of support services — PR and messaging database architecture branding and visual design web development — and our services team is distributed around the globe. I have a web developer named Viral and once when he was doing back-end work on a client’s website they noticed an unfamiliar user — “Viral” — on the inside of their site and flipped. Thankfully they got in touch with me before they called Homeland Security! I assured them everything was fine; besides the guy’s name is pronounced “Vee-ruhl” — everybody in Gujarat knows that.

If I Need a Break During Work I’ll…

Go to sleep. Back in my yeshivah days I perfected the art of the power nap. Give me 15 minutes and I’m a new man! I keep a camping mattress and travel pillow tucked away in the office and when I need a break it’s naptime nursery-school style. (Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 655)