Alison Brock McGill, Nonprofit Strategist and Entrepreneur

Hi, Alison! Thank you for doing this interview. Can you share what you do?

I try to succinctly say that I’m a nonprofit consultant. In reality, that can mean a variety of things. At a high level, I work with nonprofit organizations to address any number of problems or areas for opportunity. I got into this work independently when I left a job in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ventured out on my own in 2016. I started working with small-scale, nonprofit organizations focusing on fundraising and development, capacity-building, strategy, and growth. Over time, one of those client projects evolved into a full time opportunity. 

I’m now working full time as a consultant at Promise54, a talent solutions and advising firm within the education space. We work with all players within that landscape, including charter schools, district school systems, family foundations, and education nonprofits. Primarily we focus on talent-related issues, approached through a lens for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). So that looks like anything from performance management, developing competencies, assessing compensation, and also thinking about DEI belief statements, strategies, and capacity-building. We take on a variety of projects for a variety of clients. It is a startup nonprofit, which has unexpectedly been my wheelhouse for the past three years. 

When you reflect back, was there a pivotal point where you made the decision to focus your career on nonprofit or service-based work? 

It was around the time I was considering applying to business school, which was in 2008 or 2009. I was living in Atlanta, working at Cartoon Network in a very different capacity than what I do now. It was a for-profit company, doing for-profit work. I had a lot going on in my personal life, and realized I wanted to do things I believe are fulfilling. 

My grandmother — my father’s mother — was living in a nursing home and dealing with early-stage dementia. I was visiting her once a week, and I struggled with losing her mentally. I was mentoring this girl through Big Brothers Big Sisters. Her name was Diamond. I was feeling very exposed to how different her upbringing was from my own. My mother was diagnosed with stage 4 non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and so I got involved in the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society as a volunteer. I was also training for half-marathons. 

So I would be at my desk, and although I should have been working, I was actually planning fundraisers, organizing activities for me and Diamond, or coordinating with my uncle around when I’d see my grandmother next. So I was doing things that I felt were making a difference in the lives of people close to me. I was supporting another nonprofit in Atlanta called The Jerusalem House, that was doing a lot of work for homeless families dealing with AIDS. This ended up being what I discussed in business applications — wanting to create change. 

I joined Management Leadership for Tomorrow [MLT], which really helped me hone my story. When I went to Haas Business School, I concentrated on social impact and marketing. My first job out of school was in CSR, and from there I moved into nonprofit consulting. 

Did you have any individuals or any organizations who were especially supportive to you along the way? 

MLT was super helpful. My cohort would have monthly sessions with a coach to help process what was going on internally and to get that thinking on paper for our business school applications. So we would have a number of homework assignments that we had to bring to coaching calls and if you had done the homework then the coaching calls were great. I trusted the process, so if they said to write journal entries every month, then I would do it and it wound up being helpful. 

In business school, I plugged in really quickly with organizations like Net Impact, which cultivates students and professionals interested in social impact. I was an officer for our campus chapter of Net Impact, and I helped lead a board matching program which paired graduate students with local nonprofits as non-voting board members, who would support their designated nonprofit with projects. I also became president of another organization on campus called Challenge for Charity, and spent a year rallying my classmates around two different nonprofits in the Bay Area, driving volunteerism and fundraising. 

I had two informal mentors: Kelly McElhaney, who led Haas’s Responsible Business program, and Nora Silver who was in charge of the nonprofit resource center and served as the on-campus sponsor for the Net Impact Board Fellows Program. Nora helped me get a fellowship with Points of Light Foundation as a graduate fellow, where I worked on their ReImagining Service initiative, a program to help for-profit entities think more creatively about volunteerism as a core competency for their employees. I spent time going through a bunch of data from a survey they administered a couple years prior called the Civic 50 where they engaged and highlighted fifty companies that were especially civic-minded. I had to pull trends and practices, which would be used in a series of case studies for other companies to learn from. 

All of these individuals and organizations were very helpful when I was seeking jobs post-graduation, and based on my experiences while at Haas, I leaned into opportunities at nonprofits. 

Given your background, what qualities do you feel make you uniquely suited to do what you do? 

I do find that there is something unique and meaningful in having worked in the for-profit sector and then moving into the nonprofit space. I am a person who believes in taking some of the practices and procedures and mindsets that are used and applied to corporate spaces, and applying them to the nonprofit sector. 

It’s interesting, because I’ve been reaching out to friends and speaking with my husband to figure out what they think I’m good at. They all say “You’re always doing something creative and you’re always in charge.” The creative thing is interesting to me. Being in charge makes sense for how I’ve seen myself, but I don’t think I’ve made space for myself to really lean into my creativity. 

I also realize I love puzzles. I think it’s because I have a unique ability to organize things and put the pieces together. In strategic planning, for example, I can see how the different components fit together. Other people may get distracted or get stuck in their silos, and only care about their side of things — thinking about programming and not operations, or the budget and not programming. So I think that may be a superpower. 

I’ve also come to notice that I feel a lot of things, and I pick up on people's energy. I used to internalize it but I’m trying not to do that as much. I’m a pretty intuitive person, though. When it comes to solving problems that I care about at my core, I think that being able to connect the dots and layer in a real sense of empathy positions me to hopefully make meaningful and sustainable change. 

When thinking about your future, what are you excited for? 

My friend brought me to an event and they had a healing room where this Reiki master led me through a brief personal session. In that session, I said I wanted to manifest more rest and more peace. I want to relax the anxiety that is linked to all of the pressure I put on myself to do well in every part of my life, all the time. I want to release the guilt that comes with not being able to be a superhuman all the time. I think I just want to be more selective about the kinds of projects I’m taking on in 2020. I want to focus more on leadership, youth development, and travel. These are the things that I care about and that I’m excited to more intentionally bring into my life.

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Alia McCants, Higher Education Administrator

Thanks for speaking with me, Alia! Can you share what you do? 

I lead all prospective student recruitment at Relay Graduate School of Education. So from the first touchpoint at recruitment through team entry and enrollment, I’m responsible for those teams. I’ve been in this role for one month. Before that I was leading the recruitment team and learning  for prospective students. I’ve held multiple positions here at Relay if you want to discuss that...

Yes, please, let’s do it! How would you describe your path? 

Interesting? (laughs) I’m a curious person and I joined Relay when we were growing really quickly. There were a lot of opportunities to learn and step into new functions. When I was fresh out of grad school, I considered myself more of a skilled generalist -- solving problems and developing systems to sustain those solutions. I started working on a leadership program and then alumni affairs work for a couple years. But then I moved to strategic projects functioning in a way that was almost like an internal consultant, ascertaining what was needed and setting metrics to determine whether or not  to launch new campuses. I led our strategic planning process to produce and solidify our first-ever three-year plan. 

When I first started at Relay, I had been close to the students. When I moved to more executive work -- with high responsibility, high visibility, high-profile stakeholders -- I didn’t feel as connected to students. So I pivoted to lead the recruitment team so I got to connect with our students to inspire them and encourage them to become teachers. That was satisfying work. 

I’m also in a position where I have to align a lot of pieces of our model. For example, we have a couple different teams that grew up as silos, and so now I’m working with those teams to break down those silos. So that’s kind of been my trajectory. 

What is the biggest challenge of what you do? 

Change management. It’s all about having a clear vision, understanding the people involved, and giving them an opportunity to honor the work they have done, grieve the loss of work that they now must share or pass onto someone else, and understand the new opportunity before them. I also manage a really diverse team of people. I share an identity with some people, and some I don’t. So I focus on making sure I’m leveraging the diversity of our team so all voices can be heard, and so that we are creating an inclusive culture at the organization. I’m modeling these behaviors and practices so they can model for their own teams. 

When I left my role leading our internal and external work for our DEI strategic plan, the leadership changed and that body looks very different now. From my current role, I still work with that team. There are a lot of white women who have done a lot of work to be mindful of their privilege and biases, and we’re all working as a team to evolve and grow. But I think it  will be a challenge to determine the best way I use my voice in that space and continuing to be mindful of how I show up. It feels different than it did before. I’m also mindful of the fact that this is how it is now, and we do have a diverse bench of emerging leaders coming up. 

It’s interesting, this dynamic you bring up of supporting existing leadership while also cultivating a new generation. How has that experience been? 

It’s exciting. It keeps my brain busy. I feel very responsible for my teams, for their success, for their happiness. I know I am responsible for a wide swath of Relay’s work, and I feel that responsibility. That means continually thinking about the people, reflecting on how I show up, asking a lot of questions -- I ask so many questions! I’m always checking for their understanding and my own understanding. So it requires a lot of coordination. I find that work deeply satisfying. I like people feeling satisfied and successful in their roles. That’s one of the best parts of my job. 

What you’ve described seems as though it requires a balance of harder, more technical skills, and softer, people management skills. What is it like to have to use both of those skill sets? 

I’ve had the benefit of having really good experiences that have prepared me. Whether business school with more formal management training or as an informal learner at Relay as I learned how to lead our change management sitting in a variety of different roles since being here. I think that I’m really committed to people, and just having empathy. I hope I can lean on both sets of experiences for future success.  

It’s also important to have a sense of what I don’t know. In any organization, a solid change management approach requires having little to no ego. Our mission is what is most important, so if I have trash idea, I want you to tell me. I honestly feel like I have the best team to come up  with the best answers, and so it’s about just being comfortable with letting others step in and learning from them. 

I also think my position gives me insight into what all of our teams are doing. So I understand the bigger picture but that doesn’t make me an expert. People are experts in their own experiences so it’s important to know what you are and are not able to bring to the table.

How would you describe your leadership style?

Quirky. I think I present as a quirky person. I was an “awkward Black girl” before there was representation of us on screen. (laughs) I think if you ask my team, they’d say I’m a good big-picture thinker who can understand a vision and connect seemingly disparate pieces of information. I think I pair that with a servant-leadership mindset. I see my leadership style in support of my teams. I clear the hurdles so that they can do the work they want to do and do it well. Management and leadership are very different. Who I am as a leader is someone who is focused on building team culture, setting a vision, and remaining humble. 

Is there an early moment in your career or education that still influences you today? 

I find myself referring a lot to how I felt at Spelman where I attended undergrad. I definitely benefited from learning and growing as a human being, outside of  the identity markers that others used to define me up to that point. People see you as a Black woman, but at Spelman everyone was a Black woman, and they were all smart! I try to reference that experience when I describe to people how I want others to feel at work. I want my colleagues to be able to bring their whole identity and not worry about how others might define them. My experience at Spelman gives me the confidence to show up as myself in all spaces because my understanding of who I am came from within, and was developed outside of the white gaze, the male gaze. 

That is such an incredible insight. What are you most excited about the future? 

So many things. I’m excited my kids are going into kindergarten, and at a traditional public school. I’m excited to have school-aged kids -- I’m very excited for that. I’m also petrified by the journey. (laughs)

I’m also excited to show my kids what it’s like to be a mom who is working at a mission-oriented organization. I just taught them about the Freedom Riders and Diane Nash, who really bent the arc of history in a way that I admire. I want to show my kids that if you care about something so much and believe in it, then you work really hard for it and get good at it. I’m hopeful that my future can have that kind of impact. I really enjoy my work, my team, the people, and so I hope the future contains deeper relationships. We’ve done some really good work that we can build on and smooth out.

And I’m excited to relax and take some trips, spend more anniversaries with my husband, have our dinner together at night. Nothing fancy. But those are the things I’m excited about.

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