Building, Not Just Running: A Mindset Shift for Nonprofit Leaders
If you’ve ever felt like your nonprofit role is one long game of whack-a-mole—urgent emails, last-minute board prep, staff questions, donor follow-ups—you’re not alone. In this conversation with Juan Pablo Berrizbeitia, a Nonprofit Executive and Trainer with J.P. Berriz, we explore a simple but transformational shift:
stop focusing solely on running the nonprofit and start building it.
From Law Student to Nonprofit Builder
Juan Pablo’s path began far from U.S. boardrooms. As a Venezuelan law student volunteering in prisons and visiting a refugee camp in Mexico, he saw firsthand how culture, systems, and justice collide. That on-the-ground perspective led to roles with the World Bank (project design and evaluation across Latin America), innovation management for the private sector, and eventually seven years as an executive director at a CASA program in Virginia. The common thread? Turning messy, real-world challenges into systems that make work better for people.
The “Nonprofit Building” Mindset
Plenty of leaders keep the lights on. Builders do more. Juan Pablo frames the difference like this:
Running is about efficiency, smoothing the day-to-day, and avoiding mistakes.
Building is project-oriented work that increases capacity—documenting how things are done, improving processes, and leaving the organization stronger than you found it.
Builders ask a different question: not “How do we get through this week?” but “How do we do this better now—and next time?”
Start with the Problem in Front of You
If you’re thinking, “Sounds great, but where do I begin?”, Juan Pablo’s answer is refreshingly practical: start with whatever problem walks in the door first. When a staff member doesn’t know how to answer a sensitive client call, don’t just rescue the situation and move on. Use it as a trigger to create a repeatable solution—establishing policies, a quick “lunch-and-learn,” a one-page reference, slides saved in your shared drive, a section in the onboarding binder. It’s a small investment now that pays dividends every time the issue comes up again.
This is the essence of capacity building: turning individual heroics into organizational habits.
Systems Beat Heroics (and Burnout)
Juan Pablo’s favorite metaphor is simple: if you always lose your keys, hanging a hook by the door is a system. Nonprofits often get really good at looking for the keys—triaging emergencies with speed and heart. But a hook beats heroics every time.
That shift matters for people as much as performance. A builder’s mindset can reduce burnout because progress becomes visible and shared. Staff feel the calm that comes from clarity: a checklist for event logistics, a script for difficult calls, a standard for donor stewardship, a cadence for board reporting. Each small win compounds.
And if you need resources to accelerate the work, remember there’s real funding for this: capacity-building grants that underwrite documentation, training, and infrastructure. But you don’t have to wait for a grant to start chipping away.
Interim Executive Directors: Calm in the Storm
Another big theme from the episode is the value of interim executive directors. Many boards don’t realize it’s an option—or they assume interims simply “keep the seat warm.” In reality, a strong and effective interim does three things:
Stabilizes culture and operations so the organization can breathe.
Surfaces truths through a light-touch organizational assessment—what’s working, what’s fragile, and what the next leader will inherit.
Sets up the handoff—from funding and staffing housekeeping (signatories, cards, passwords) to a thoughtful overlap with the incoming ED.
That overlap month matters. It’s when the new leader gets a clear lay of the land, relationships are bridged, and momentum is protected. Yes, it briefly costs more, but the payoff is a far faster, healthier onboarding.
Change Management, not Perfection
None of this is instant, and it isn’t all green lights. As Juan Pablo notes, change requires reading the room: what’s possible in this culture, right now? Sometimes a plan meets resistance, not because it’s wrong but because it collides with a valued norm (like preserving precious team time). Builders adapt—record the training; use staff meeting for Q&A; keep the value, change the vehicle.
The aim isn’t perfection. It’s progress you can reuse.
Hope for the Future
At the heart of Juan Pablo’s message is hope — hope that even in the often under-resourced, over-stretched world of nonprofits, real progress is possible. Building, rather than simply running, doesn’t require a revolution or a massive grant; it starts with one small system, one documented process, one shared lesson. Every time you take a challenge and turn it into something repeatable, you’re not just easing tomorrow’s workload — you’re strengthening your mission for the long haul.
So take a breath, look around your organization, and remember: every thoughtful improvement is an act of leadership. Bit by bit, you’re not just keeping the lights on — you’re building something that lasts.
