The HNC Boot Camp Experience

What this video can’t show…

The leaders in this video talk a lot about how transformative Boot Camp was for them… and it’s likely you’re skeptical. (Of course you are - you’re smart!) There are many organizations out there that claim to be a “life-changing” experience but don’t deliver on that promise. If you keep reading, we’ll show you how Boot Camp is different.

So what is it that actually makes this a powerful experience?

Imagine you’re a nonprofit Executive Director working long hours, struggling to bring your team together around a shared vision for the organization, being pulled in a million directions, and feeling scattered because your to-do list is expanding every day. Often it feels like you’re just barely getting by.

Then you participate in Boot Camp and by the end, you’re working (for the most part) reasonable hours, you feel clear and focused, your staff has a deep understanding and buy-in for your collective organizational vision, and you have a suite of tools that helps you manage and track progress on every project within your organization - everything feels under control. What would you say if you tried to describe the significance of these results in a sentence or two?

This is the magnitude of results that Boot Camp participants typically experience, and this is what they mean when they say the experience was transformational. HNC doesn’t take credit for the hard work that leaders do through our Boot Camp, but we can confidently say that Boot Camp provides the right environment, guidance, and support for leaders to make huge progress in a very short amount of time.

If you’re a nonprofit leader and are curious about what this experience could be like for you, take a look at our Boot Camp overview and let us know you’re interested below. Not sure yet? Keep reading!

[If you’re looking for fiscal sponsorship, check out our ILS program.]

What is HNC Boot Camp?

Boot Camp is a 3-month intensive program that helps community-driven leaders get to the “next level” with their organizations. It starts with a series of conversations to help us tailor the entire experience to each leader’s individual and organizational needs. Next we spend 7-days at a mountain retreat (what we call Deep Dive Week) in workshops that have been built for that specific group of leaders. After we get back, we’ll start weekly coaching sessions with leaders to give them hands-on support with implementing what they’ve created during Deep Dive Week. We call this Future Proofing - an opportunity to support leaders as they navigate change management within their organization.

We focus our Boot Camp work with leaders in five areas

Note: since we personalize each leader’s Boot Camp experience, we use these 5 areas to guide our goal setting. We never force participants to focus on things that aren’t relevant to them, which lets us spend more time on the things that matter.

1. Improved Clarity & Focus | Clarity is about improving (or building) a logic model for the organization that can drive both impact and sustainable income. Focus is about building the tools you can actually use to operationalize your strategy ensure focused implementation and vision-alignment at every level of the organization.
   

2. Fundraising & Sustainable Revenue | You’ll learn a comprehensive approach to fundraising in a way that feels good, doesn’t take too much time, and leads to massive results. Then, we’ll build the practical tools needed to implement your strategy, we’ll demystify the “black box” of philanthropy, and make real progress towards your funding goals.
   

3. Evaluation & Understanding Impact | Using our “researching without researching” approach, we help organizations gain all the internal and external benefits of a comprehensive research agenda without the complication. Leaders will design an organization-wide approach to research that covers data collection, analysis, synthesis, reporting, and practices for continuous improvement.
   

4. Managing Time & Attention | These sessions dive into the systems, tools, habits, and mindsets leaders use to manage their time and attention. We work with leaders to build their own personalized approach to getting more done in less time - with the goal of feeling clear and focused rather than scattered and busy.
   

5. Operational Effectiveness & Efficiency | Depending on their organizational needs, we support leaders in building efficient, automated systems to minimize the amount of staff time required to maintain operational effectiveness. Content areas include: accounting/bookkeeping, budgeting and financial modeling, legal advising, contracts/agreements, and board governance.

It’s worth saying again: each Boot Camp experience is personalized to ensure we’re addressing a leader’s real needs and not wasting time on things they’re already great at. The real magic of Boot Camp is how each component creates a cohesive and immersive experience.

Note: With the exception of Deep Dive Week, the Boot Camp experience happens through zoom and phone (especially during COVID-times) and occasional in-person meetings, if desired by participants.