Scaling Mission-Driven Impact with Breakthrough Leadership Consulting

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Hi, this is Aurora from the Educating All Learners Alliance,
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and today we're speaking to Deb Hanmer from Breakthrough Leadership Consulting.
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Deb is the founder and CEO of Breakthrough Leadership Consulting,
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a firm that partners with public-serving institutions, education systems,
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and nonprofits to build the internal strategy and capacity they need to deliver on their missions.
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She's also been a mentor for our EALA champions for many years,
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guiding, coaching, and mentoring our incredible cohorts. Welcome to the podcast,
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Deb. It's so great to have you here today.
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Thanks, Aurora. I'm excited to be here.
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So let's dive right in. You've been a mentor with the New Champions for at least three cycles now.
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But going back a little bit to sort of your origin story, what originally brought
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you to this sort of mission-driven work? What inspired you to launch Breakthrough
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Leadership Consulting?
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Yeah, great question. So I really would have to say my parents and my faith
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really started me out in that idea of service and doing important work with those who are,
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sort of looking to serve the public good.
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I think I really had that model growing up, watching my parents volunteer in
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different organizations at our church and sort of just.
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Seeing that really established a model for me as I started off into college and into my own career.
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Kind of joining those organizations that had that mission focus.
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Like that really attracted me, even though there were some other opportunities,
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that might have helped with things like student loans, right?
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But Breakthrough was really sort of forged out of that idea that those who serve
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the public should have the support that they need to do their jobs in excellent ways.
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And that's the kind of spirit behind our work. Yeah, I love that.
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That service mindset, right, giving back and.
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A lot of times running, doing good work, there's so much infrastructure,
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there's so much capacity that has to come with that.
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That's not always, sometimes people come to the work and there are sometimes,
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some gaps, right, that need to be filled in terms of their work.
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You know, the skills that it takes to run a company. So you've had a bird's
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eye view of the landscape, you know, because you've mentioned so many different
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emerging leaders, both through the EALA Champions and your work at Breakthrough.
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Over the last few years, what are some of the biggest themes or common trends
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that you've seen bubbling up?
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I know it's not an easy time right now in education or leadership,
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but yeah, can you touch on some of any common themes, common trends that's come to the forefront?
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Yeah, I think what always, the same things that excite me about working with
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mission-driven organizations and individuals is that their heart brings them
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to the work, their passion, their desire to see these good things happen.
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But Aurora, as you point out, sometimes those systems, those structures just
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aren't in place in the organizations.
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And those can really impact that ability to sort of deliver to the constituents,
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to the citizens that folks are looking to serve.
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I think in that similar vein, when organizations have just fewer resources,
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a lot of times, especially in this really competitive grant and funding landscape,
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organizations can get outpaced for grant funding, right?
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Places that have development directors and folks who can do grant writing versus
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an organization where it's just that passionate leader.
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Who does, who's doing like a lot of the work directly, sort of managing the
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board and writing the grant.
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I think that continues to be a theme. And then we've just seen it like,
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just have sort of like a bigger impact right now with the competitive landscape.
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You touched on it with the idea of, you know, there's one passionate leader
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doing everything versus a team that's more fully built out.
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What are, you know, when you look at the emerging leaders, I mean,
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I'm especially thinking about the new champions. You just wrapped up the 2025.
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Class of new champions, right?
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But thinking about those emerging leaders, talking a little bit more about scale,
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right? What are some of the other...
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You know, challenges that you see as they try to scale, as they try to grow
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and increase their impact? What are some of the things that.
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What are some of the roadblocks that you've seen?
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I think one is connected to sort
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of that last comment I made about the one person doing so many things.
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So one, I think noticeable gap, especially with a lot of smaller and growing
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nonprofits is that idea of having like a strategic vision, maybe even embed
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it into a strategic plan.
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And that can get real buzzwordy, like, you know, we're doing strategic planning.
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But when I say it, it's really that opportunity for leaders to sort of step
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back out of the day-to-day reality.
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And, you know, like with, you know, other sort of allies in the organization,
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whether that's board members, whether that's key staff members, to really stop,
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and think about, like, what that mission is and how we see it playing out in
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concrete ways over, say,
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a concrete period of time, right, the next three years.
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But you have to sort of step away from the work to really be able to invest
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in it and get in front of it.
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And that, I think, continues to be a theme across leaders who are trying to grow.
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They're so busy in the rat race and the whirlwind of the day-to-day.
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Just stepping back and having that longer-term vision is something that I would,
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you know, encourage any nonprofit leader to really go after.
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Yeah, can you give us some...
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Practical tips or let me put it this way you know for leaders out there that
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are listening who are running small non-profits or school programs,
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it's they've got to feel completely overwhelmed i mean i know that it's it's
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there's there's so much to do so so what are some what's some practical advice
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or some real world tips or tools that that you would you would find yourself
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giving somebody in that situation,
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i think whether you're a school leader which is my background whether you're
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a nonprofit leader, sort of in that public sector.
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The most practical piece of advice that I could provide or the thing you want
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to have in front of you is data.
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You want to have data in front of you. And that not data to prep for like the
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grant, right? Sometimes that's the time where leaders start collecting sort
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of data from around the organization or the school.
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You want to actually operate with data and figuring out a very like a clear
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and clean way to sort of track that data. I always suggest before we go to the
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big programs to just start with a spreadsheet, right?
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Start with a spreadsheet. These are the five key data points that we're tracking.
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This says, you know, like the number of families we're serving or the reading
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growth we want to make with this population of students.
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Something that can be very basic. Some organizations I know have different requirements.
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As it relates to data, but actually using whatever that data system is,
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whether you have to create it from scratch or you have kind of like a bigger
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one already put on top of you, learning how to integrate that into meetings.
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So adding kind of like some kind of data dive or data analysis into
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sort of regular team meetings, supervision meetings, whatever the case may be,
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just to get used to kind of like that usage and analyzing and understanding it,
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I think just that sort of act or activity could be a real game changer for organizations.
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That's fantastic. It's the idea of not waiting until the end or waiting until
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it's time to collect the information. It's keeping that sort of.
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You know, keeping an eye on that data and to keep things running so that it's
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not you're not rushing to meet a deadline. It's built into how you do the work.
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Absolutely. Absolutely.
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Well, we're at the end of our questions today. So before you go,
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how can folks stay involved or learn more about you and your work?
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What's the best way for folks to kind of continue, continue learning about you
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and Breakthrough after listening to the podcast today?
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Absolutely. And thanks for that. You can definitely always find me on LinkedIn.
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I always like to put out a lot of information and ways to connect.
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And then definitely visit our website. We just newly designed it at bktlead.com.
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So we can keep in touch there. There's ways to sign up for newsletters and all
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sorts of other ways to engage.
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Well, thank you so much, Deb. It's been great talking with you today.
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Always a pleasure when our paths cross and we get to have a conversation. Thank you. Thank you.
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Well, that's it for us today, folks. Thank you to Deb Hanmer.
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And to learn more, check out their website at bktlead.com.
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If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast
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platform and follow up on social media.
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I'm Aurora from EALA, and this was a Deep Dive with Deb Hanmer.