Keep The People Who Believe In The Mission.
Board retreats, staff days, annual meetings, and donor events for nonprofits that cannot compete on salary and have to win on something else.
Your people did not take the job for the money, which is exactly why losing them costs so much more than the salary line suggests. Chris Sund spent two decades in healthcare workforce, where the same thing is true, and he serves as Vice President of a national association board, so he knows both sides of the room: the staff who give more than they are paid for, and the volunteers who are supposed to govern it.
You cannot pay your people what they are worth. What you can do is make sure they never wonder whether it mattered.
My KC Live, KCTV5 Kansas City →Something to send your board chair.
Nonprofit speaker decisions get made by a committee that has to justify the spend to a board watching the overhead ratio. Chris has been on morning television in six markets and in Forbes, Inc., and the Midlands Business Journal, and the media hub plus the speaker kit gives your committee everything they need in one link.
Five things a nonprofit room walks out with.
Nothing here requires a bigger budget, a new fundraising platform, or a strategic planning cycle. All of it is available on Monday.
- A retention argument that does not start with pay. You are never going to win on salary, and everyone in the room knows it. What you can win on is whether people can see the result of their work, whether anyone tells them the truth, and whether they are getting better at something. Those are free and they are the actual reasons people stay.
- A board that understands what it is for. Most nonprofit boards drift into approving minutes. The session is direct about the difference between governing, fundraising, and getting in the way, without lecturing volunteers who are already giving you their evenings.
- Permission for the executive director to be honest. Running a nonprofit is one of the loneliest jobs there is. An ED cannot vent to staff, cannot vent to the board, and often will not say the whole of it at home. Naming that in the room changes what gets said for the rest of the retreat.
- Language the whole organization can share. When the board, the staff, and the volunteers are working from the same ten principles, conversations that used to take an hour take ten minutes. That is the practical case for doing this at a retreat rather than a conference.
- One specific move, not a strategic plan. Every session ends on a single action small enough to survive a real week in an understaffed organization.
On what the nonprofit session is about
Seven ways nonprofits book him.
A board retreat plus a staff session on the same day is the most common combination, and the most useful, because both groups end up holding the same language.
Board Retreat
Board and executive leadership together. Governance, honest conversation inside a volunteer board, and what the board actually owes the organization.Staff Retreat or All-Team Day
The whole team, including part-time and program staff. Morale, ownership, and why the work matters, without pretending the workload is reasonable.Annual Meeting Keynote
Members, donors, board, and staff in one room. Built to work for all four at once.Donor Event or Gala
Short, warm, and built around the mission and the people being recognized rather than around the speaker.State Nonprofit Conference
General session for state nonprofit associations, United Way gatherings, and community foundation convenings.Executive Director Cohort
For an ED peer group or leadership cohort. The isolation of the job, and leading people who could earn more somewhere else.Volunteer Appreciation
Recognition events for the volunteers who keep the organization running. Leading and keeping people who are not paid at all.Rotary & Civic Clubs
For the service clubs that fund and staff your programs.He has sat in all three chairs.
Staff, executive, and board. The nonprofit conversation goes differently when the speaker has actually been each one.
He serves on one
Vice President of the NATHO Board of Directors. He knows what it is to give real hours to something that does not pay you, and what it feels like when a board meeting produces nothing. That is why the board material is direct without being disrespectful of volunteers.He keeps mission-driven people
As President and COO of Uniti Med, GQR Healthcare and Nebula, he helped grow Uniti Med 10x in two years while the organization earned Fortune Best Workplaces recognition and Great Place to Work certification three years running. Growing while keeping people is the version nonprofits need.Healthcare workforce is your twin
Understaffed, underpaid, mission-driven, and losing the people who care most. He has spent his career inside that, so the retention material is not borrowed from a corporate deck where money solves everything.Four movements. Ten principles.
Every session runs the same architecture as the book, which is what lets a board retreat, a staff day, and an annual meeting build on each other across a year.
The Foundation
Ownership and time. What is actually inside your control in an organization where most of the constraints are set elsewhere.The Breakthrough
The comfort ceiling and the inner voice. The section long-tenured staff and board members go quietest for.The Standard
Truth over praise, and the hidden gear. How a board and an executive director start telling each other the truth.The Purpose
Finishing, and leaving people better. The close, and the movement your organization was founded on.A copy for the board and the team.
A retreat gives your people a day. A copy each gives a board and a staff the same ten principles to work from, which is how a retreat turns into something that survives past the first busy week.
You Are Capable of More: A No-Excuses Guide to Becoming Your Best Self. An Amazon bestseller from Game Changer Publishing, with a foreword by Ben Newman.
Ten chapters across four movements. The free companion toolkit includes a discussion guide that works as a board reading series or a staff book study, a self-assessment, and a thirty day challenge. None of it is gated behind an email address, so an organization can use all of it whether or not it buys a single copy.
The feedback speaks for itself.
Chris was an outstanding speaker and a highlight of our event. He took the time to deeply understand our organization and thoughtfully personalized every moment.
Chris is a thoughtful, intentional leader who understands the influence he carries. His message challenged me to think differently about how I lead, serve, and influence others.
His engaging style draws the audience into the conversation, creating a relaxed atmosphere that encourages learning and reflection. You leave not only inspired but equipped.
Chris consistently brings knowledge, insight, and practical advice. He led two impactful sessions and left everyone with tools they could use immediately.
Chris energized the room, sparked conversations, and encouraged connections throughout the event, with a lasting impact on our future leaders.
Chris was an outstanding speaker and a highlight of our event. He took the time to deeply understand our organization and thoughtfully personalized every moment.
Chris is a thoughtful, intentional leader who understands the influence he carries. His message challenged me to think differently about how I lead, serve, and influence others.
His engaging style draws the audience into the conversation, creating a relaxed atmosphere that encourages learning and reflection. You leave not only inspired but equipped.
Chris consistently brings knowledge, insight, and practical advice. He led two impactful sessions and left everyone with tools they could use immediately.
Chris energized the room, sparked conversations, and encouraged connections throughout the event, with a lasting impact on our future leaders.
Events already on your calendar.
He gives his own hours to a board.
Chris Sund is an executive leader, keynote speaker, and bestselling author of You Are Capable of More.
He serves as Vice President of the NATHO Board of Directors. As President and COO of Uniti Med, GQR Healthcare and Nebula, he helped grow Uniti Med 10x in two years and earn the number three ranking on the Inc. Regionals list among the fastest growing companies in the Midwest, while the organization earned Fortune Best Workplaces recognition and Great Place to Work certification three years running.
He is a father of three, a Maxwell Leadership Certified speaker, trainer, and coach, and the founder of Amplify Speakers. He does not arrive at a nonprofit with a fundraising system or a governance model to install. He speaks to the part of the work that decides whether the people who believe in your mission are still there in two years.
Details your committee will ask for.
Executive directors and board chairs ask these.
How much does a nonprofit speaker cost?
Our board is all volunteers. Will he be too hard on them?
Is this a governance or strategic planning consultation?
We cannot compete on salary. What can he actually say to our staff?
Can we do the board and the staff on the same day?
Will it work at a donor event or gala?
Do you speak at state nonprofit conferences?
Can he speak to our volunteers?
Can we get books for our board or staff?
How do we start?
Other ways organizations book him.
Same framework, built for the specific room you are filling.