Learning for Good | L&D Solutions and Leadership Development for Nonprofit Organizations
As nonprofit learning and development leaders, we want a seat at the table. We want to be viewed as true business partners who can help solve problems. We want to create meaningful learning solutions that fit in the flow of work and yield real results for the organization and for the staff.
That's why in this podcast, we will not only explore instructional design and leadership development best practices, but we will also explore change management, belonging, and influence - helping you build the case for the solutions your organization needs so you can show up confidently in conversations with other senior leaders, subject matter experts, staff, and partners.
If we haven't met yet, I'm Heather, and I’ve been in your shoes. I'm a learning and development consultant and the founder and principal consultant at Skill Masters Market. Before starting Skill Masters Market, I worked for a large national nonprofit where I led learning and development leadership initiatives.
I know what it’s like to need to develop your staff quickly and effectively, and to build the relationships and cut through the organizational layers to be successful. With an eye for the larger strategy and the creative design process, I've created hundreds of learning experiences - in-person, self-paced, and virtual classroom - and have worked with dozens of leaders and their staff to help them achieve their organization’s professional development goals.
So if you're ready to bust through the barriers and start creating behavior change in your nonprofit, this podcast is for you. Let's dive in. It's Learning for Good.
Nonprofit Management | Leadership Training | Leadership Development | Staff Management | Change Management | Instructional Design | Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Learn more: www.skillmastersmarket.com
Connect with me: www.linkedin.com/in/heather-burright
Schedule a call: https://bit.ly/3GQT6Yg
Episodes
134 episodes
Being a Strategic Learning Partner & The Biggest Mistake You're Making
What does it mean to be a good partner in Learning and Development? That’s what we’re exploring in this episode, but we’re doing it from the truest sense of the word partner. I think one of the biggest mistakes we make is t...
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Episode 134
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10:40
Cross-Sector Coaching: Enhancing Nonprofit Leadership Development Strategies
All too often, new managers have no training, peer group, or support. Then, when they fail or burnout, we say they weren’t management material. We can and we should do more to support new managers.When Cru, a faith-based nonprofit, faced...
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Episode 133
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35:28
Translating Behavior Science into L&D Strategy: Lessons from Top Experts
When we create learning solutions, what we really want is to create a new behavior or change behavior in some way. So, what does it take to create a new behavior? On this episode of Learning for Good, I’m sharing lessons from behavi...
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Episode 132
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12:47
Working across Generations? Three Things L&D Needs to Know with Kat Landa
Our world is constantly evolving, and because of that, our experiences across generations are different. Because our experiences are different, our perspectives are different, and because our perspectives are different, our actions are also dif...
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Episode 131
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36:14
Curious about Working in Nonprofit? Get an Inside Look from These Nonprofit L&D Pros
I often get questions about working in nonprofit, so I launched Career Conversations - a series of LinkedIn Live conversations with people currently in nonprofit L&D roles. We are talking about their organizations, teams, and personal caree...
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Episode 130
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1:07:45
How to Conduct a Training Needs Analysis for Nonprofit Staff Development
Understanding your training audience may be the best thing you can do as an instructional designer. Yet, many of us have never been taught how to conduct a training needs analysis.On this episode of Learning for Good, I want to talk abou...
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Episode 129
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9:34
Identifying Nonprofit Training Audience Needs: 3 Effective Strategies
In L&D, when we are approached with a training request, it's our job to do a little research for ourselves about training audience needs.Often, the time you have to do this research is limited. Your capacity and the capacity of your ...
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Episode 128
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11:44
Embracing Growth Mindset for Enhanced Nonprofit Leadership with Kim Andrews
The fear of failure impacts our learners’ ability to learn, so we need to help them move to a growth mindset. A growth mindset is a place where it's okay to try new things, fail, and continue to show up and be persistent even in the face of fai...
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Episode 127
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31:02
How to Conduct a Training Project Debrief
Do you take the time to intentionally reflect after a training project ends? Reflection is powerful and it's something we often do, but it's not something we often do with intentionality. That’s why on this episode of Learning for ...
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Episode 126
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12:51
Small L&D Team? How One Nonprofit University Uses Volunteers to Increase Capacity with Ashley Dugger
If you are looking to transition to L&D, your experience matters! Volunteering can help you fill in the gaps. This is exactly what Dr. Ashley Dugger is here to talk about.Ashley engages volunteers in her organization to help increase...
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Episode 125
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33:30
Crafting Effective Learning Objectives: A 4-Step Guide for Nonprofits
In this episode, I want to share my 4-step process to write better learning objectives. What do I mean by better? This is not a lesson on making them SMART (specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and timely) though...
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Episode 124
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9:42
Enhancing Nonprofit Training Engagement Through Learner Personas
Are your learners bored? So often our training audience attends training that isn't relevant or engaging, contains so much extra information they feel lost, or the included scenarios make no sense for them and their role.Con...
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Episode 123
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11:34
Leveraging a Personal Board of Directors for Nonprofit Career Growth with Jarrett Ransom
What’s the value of an outside perspective? An outside perspective will help you be more consistent, improve your awareness and confidence, and accelerate your career because they can see the things you can't. This is true in all ar...
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Episode 122
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28:12
Applying Aviation Leadership Principles to Nonprofit Development with Craig Coyle
A lot of what we do in Learning and Development is not life and death. We often have the freedom to experiment with new ideas in our nonprofit training and while we want the best possible outcome, we can feel safe to fail.This is not the...
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Episode 121
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25:16
Enhancing Nonprofit Health via People Manager Development with Kamaria Scott
People managers have a hard job. They have to set goals, manage resources, support real humans who are not always easy to support, and keep everything moving on time and within budget so the organization can meet its goals.That’s w...
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Episode 120
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34:13
The Business Case for Mentoring - What's the Value? with Neil Cunningham
We know the impact a good mentor can have. Yet, according to a Forbes article, only 37% of professionals have a mentor. This means there are still many people out there who aren't benefiting from this type of relationship. How do w...
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Episode 119
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21:35
The Belonging Blueprint: How to Create Connection among Your Teams with Abigail Finck
While work may never be the top place you feel belonging, it can be a place where you can be yourself, where you can feel safe, and where you can feel connected to your work and team. However, this doesn’t happen organically, we have to wor...
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Episode 118
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36:27
How to Measure Behavior Change and Impact in a Federated Nonprofit or Membership Association
Measuring behavior change and impact is hard in most organizations, but add the complexities of federated nonprofit organizations or membership associations, and it suddenly feels impossible.In this episode, I’m exploring why measuring...
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Episode 117
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12:34
Using a Blended, Cohort Training Model to Create Behavior Change with Nonprofit Leader Rebecca Kelley
Creating behavior change is no easy task. So when Rebecca Kelley of Waterford.org approached me about a change she wanted to facilitate in one of her teams, I knew we had a lot of work to do. Today’s...
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Episode 116
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25:12
I'm 20 Years into My Career. If You're New to L&D, Listen to This.
I feel strongly that you don't need a formal education in adult learning to be a good instructional designer. But I do think instructional designers have to be open to learning new things.I’ve learned a lot over my 20 year career in Learnin...
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Episode 115
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14:58
How One Nonprofit Improves Emotional Intelligence through Training with Erin Harris
Boundaries, coping skills, conflict resolution, empathy, mental health, and self-care are skills we all need in life, and the nonprofit Un/Do Mindset is on a mission to make sure everyone has them. They're working to build a more resi...
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Episode 114
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30:38
Setting Values-Based Goals for 2025
People with goals are 10 times more likely to succeed. That’s the kind of momentum I want as I head into 2025.I've worked with others to set goals for years. I've coached people through career transitions. And I've led project teams with a ...
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Episode 113
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13:12
Two Skills Your People Managers Need But Probably Don't Have with Eric Girard
The number one priority for HR leaders in 2025 is leader and manager development and yet, only 36% of organizations with leadership development programs think they work. Organizations are spending money and prioritizing leadership development b...
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Episode 112
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21:23
Using AI to Create Persuasive, Visual Stories for Your Training with Nicholas Leonard
Stories help us learn and engage us on an emotional level. But one of the more challenging parts of using stories is finding the right visuals to go with them. That’s where AI comes in. I personally have not used AI to create visual stories...
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Episode 111
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34:58
5 Ways to Incorporate Peer Learning into Your Nonprofit's Learning Strategy
Peer learning is a great technique to use in your training programs because it encourages active participation and networking, ensures diverse perspectives are shared and considered, encourages social and collaborative skills, and so much more....
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Episode 110
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12:39