Can Innovation be in a Nonprofit?

Michelle Bockman is CEO of KeraLink International, where she leads a mission to eliminate avoidable blindness in low- and middle-income communities through community-based care, innovative technologies, and strategic investment. KeraLink’s work focuses on prevention, early detection and expedited treatment, and novel therapeutic approaches.

Michelle brings more than two decades of executive leadership across global corporations, startups, and innovation ventures. Her recent roles include CEO of LB Consulting, President of Stanley X, the innovation business of Stanley Black & Decker, and CEO of 3D Control Systems. She previously held senior leadership roles with HP 3D Printing and several GE businesses, spanning innovation, product development, sales, supply chain, service, and digital transformation.

A mechanical engineer by training, Michelle has also been a strong advocate for women and girls in STEM. She holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Missouri University of Science & Technology and is based in California.

More information at https://keralink.org/

The Interview Summary

In this episode of The Nonprofit Exchange, Hugh Ballou talks with Michelle Bockman, CEO of KeraLink International, about what happens when nonprofit leaders bring an innovation mindset, disciplined execution, and scalable business practices into mission-driven work.

Michelle challenges the assumption that innovation is too expensive, too risky, or somehow out of place in the nonprofit sector. Drawing from her experience in major corporations, startups, and technology ventures, she explains why nonprofits can benefit from many of the same disciplines that help successful businesses grow: clear strategy, focused priorities, strong operating systems, thoughtful resource allocation, and a willingness to test new ideas.

The conversation explores the important difference between growth and scalability, along with the need to build boards and teams around the skills an organization will need for its future. Michelle shares how KeraLink uses a skills matrix to identify gaps and intentionally recruits people who bring different perspectives, expertise, and ways of thinking.

Hugh and Michelle also discuss the importance of diversifying revenue rather than relying too heavily on a small number of donors or funding sources. Michelle describes KeraLink’s approach, which combines philanthropy, grants, technology development, investments, earned revenue, and partnerships to create a more sustainable model for advancing its mission.

Partnerships are another major theme. Michelle explains how collaboration with hospitals, universities, community organizations, clinicians, technology partners, and other mission-aligned organizations allows KeraLink to extend its reach and increase its impact.

Throughout the conversation, Michelle emphasizes that innovation is ultimately about solving problems. Nonprofit leaders do not need unlimited resources to innovate, but they do need focus, courage, disciplined execution, and a willingness to stop doing what no longer works.

The episode offers a practical reminder that sustainable impact comes from more than good intentions. It requires leaders who are willing to think differently, build the right systems and partnerships, allocate resources wisely, and continually look for better ways to accomplish the mission.

 

The Interview Transcript

Hugh Ballou

Hello again. Welcome to The Nonprofit Exchange. You can find us at thenonprofitexchange.org. I’m Hugh Ballou. I’m your host. Today we’re exploring a question that too many nonprofit leaders still treat as either or choice. Can innovation truly live inside a nonprofit? And can the discipline used to scale successful businesses help a mission-driven organization expand its impact? Two really important questions. My guest today is Michelle Bockman. We’ve had a visit, and she has a lot of good things to share today. She’s CEO of KeraLink International. Michelle brings more than two decades of leadership experience across global corporations Startups, digital manufacturing operations, supply chain, product development, innovation. Quite a mouthful. Her career includes senior leadership roles with GE, HP, 3D printing, Stanley X, the innovation business of Stanley Black & Decker, and 3D control systems. That’s quite a resume. Today, She applies that experience to a mission of expanding access to eye care and eliminating avoidable blindness in underserved communities. She is, as I said, a CEO of KeraLink International, where she leads the work focused on preventing, detecting, and treating avoidable blindness through community-based programs, technology, and scalable partnerships. So, KeraLink is building an ecosystem that combines direct programs, technology innovation, partnerships, and mission-driven enterprise. Michelle joins us to talk about what nonprofits can learn from scalable business models, how leaders can diversify revenue, today in changing times, but for the future as well, because things are changing a lot. And how innovation can become a disciplined part of mission delivery, rather than simply a buzzword. Michelle, welcome to the Nonprofit Exchange. And let’s start out with, when we hear the title, Can Innovation Be in a Nonprofit? What assumption about nonprofit leadership are you trying to challenge?

Michelle Bockman

First of all, thank you, Hugh. The warm introduction was wonderful. I was kind of wondering, who is that you’re talking about? And then I was like, oh, it’s me. So it’s very nice. I truly appreciate that. So the assumption that we are trying to, or I am trying to make sure that people understand that is not necessarily the assumption you have to have as you go into a nonprofit is the fact that you don’t have to use innovation or you can’t innovate because it’s too expensive or it takes too many people or it’s kind of scary and it’s too risky to innovate. So that is the main assumption that I think about or I thought about when I moved from the for-profit world into the nonprofit world, thinking that I’m not a nonprofit leader. How do I fit here? And even speaking to the chair of our board, she was like, no, just think of this as a business. And so I came into this and I was like, yeah, we need to think about this as a business. And that’s exactly what I did when I came into KeraLink, the nonprofit.

Hugh Ballou

So you spent some important years in some important corporate work. So when you first entered here, talk a little bit more about what can we do differently?

Michelle Bockman

Yeah, so I years ago I used to do this presentation to executive leaders at different companies about startups always wanting to be a corporate and corporates always wanting to be a startup so I took that kind of mind. set in brought it here in kind of the nonprofit versus the for profit world like big corporations always want to be scrappy and they want to be able to. move easily be flexible make quick decisions and the startups always want to be the corporate in the corporate world, so when I think in nonprofit and for profit. I don’t think they think that way. I think the nonprofits are like, no, no, the for-profit is so different. And the for-profits are like, nonprofits are so different. So I thought about that a lot and I said, how do I bring that thinking, that business-minded thinking to a nonprofit? Meaning like innovation and how do we stay mission-driven and take that impact and marry it with innovation and bring together this business-minded nonprofit.

Hugh Ballou

That sort of hones in on some of the key teachings that you offer. So we hear the word nonprofit, which is not used by IRS, but it’s the only sector that defines ourselves by what we’re not. But it also limits us to this scarcity thinking. So let’s go a little bit deeper into this. You’ve learned things in the corporate world. So what’s holding us back? Is it a mindset? Is it lack of technology? Is it lack of process? And then how do we then put that into perspective and move forward and give ourselves permission to do a little out-of-the-box thinking or a little bit of experimenting while at the same time we’re protecting the trust of donors because we’re stewards of other people’s money and integrity and responsible stewardship. So we’ve got these burdens on us, but really we need to address that mindset and that lack of system. So talk about that a minute, please.

Michelle Bockman

Well, I definitely think it’s a mindset shift around how people think about nonprofits. So if you just break it down into innovation is just about solving problems and businesses, successful businesses are innovating. And so you bring innovation into the nonprofit world. And so if you think of it like we’re just solving a problem and there’s no, well, there’s many big problems in the world that nonprofits are trying to solve but there is a very large problem that I’m trying to solve with my business and it’s around avoidable blindness. And so I just can’t assume that traditional methods are gonna work. And I think there are a lot of people using traditional methods today and finding that it doesn’t necessarily work anymore depending on one donor. or depending on a handful of donors, it’s like the 80-20 split where 80 percent of your revenue is coming from 20 percent of the donors. Diversifying just like businesses do, I think it’s really important. But shifting the mindset, getting people rallied around the mission, but putting business operating practices in place. And then understanding how you scale it, how you make this sustainable, what problems are you solving? Is it a customer problem or a patient problem? Looking at the data, what is the data telling us? And then you take all of those questions, and they’re still relevant. for the nonprofit world, you’re thinking of it as a business. And if you do that with your strategy, your operating mechanisms, your vision, and you put focus priorities in place, and you execute upon the innovative technologies or the innovative business models, then which is normally what for-profits do you bring all of that model into a nonprofit, I can’t see why you wouldn’t have success there.

Hugh Ballou

And you’re right, the mindset is important reset at the beginning to embrace those. We very often have really capable business leaders on our boards and somehow we’re not taking advantage of their knowledge and their connections. So let’s use the next step to talk about this bringing in the knowledge and experience. So specifically, you talk about scalability. So define what scalability means and how does that help get our mission accomplished?

Michelle Bockman

Yeah, I think scalability is different than growth, and a lot of people get the two mixed up. I think you can have growth, meaning you can add a bunch of resources to your team, but you might not have scale, meaning you’re scaling in the market. And you can also have like a very small organization that can scale, meaning that you’re scaling, not necessarily growing your business internally, but you’re scaling externally. So I think that’s important. And having the right experts on your team is absolutely important. Last year I did a skills matrix for our board. on all of the skills that I thought that we would need as we move forward, as we scaled into the future, as we looked at what our strategy was year one through year five, and had the current board go through the skills matrix and assess themselves. And then I looked at it and determined what the gaps were, and then we recruited for board members who fit the gaps. And, and definitely, you know, non nonprofit fundraising is important. However, having startup experience and innovating and technology and clinicians on our board was equally as important. So we make sure that we have all facets of what we are looking at our future looking like on the board and as well as in our team. I do another exercise with our team to make sure that we have a diverse group of individuals that meet innovation or imagination. people, community-based, and then process-oriented. And then the last one is execution. So when you have all four of those facets in your organization, you have a well-balanced organization. So I look at the board and then I look at the team.

Hugh Ballou

I want to highlight some things. If you’re watching this, listening to this, don’t try to write all these down. There’s a transcript at thenonprofitexchange.org, but there’s some really important, what we might call soundbites, but critical ideas, skills and gaps. I learned that I interviewed Cal Turner Jr. took over Dollar General from his father who founded it and said to his board, you know, you got the skills. I don’t have the skills to take this public, but I have the vision. So he empowered them. He said, Hugh, leadership is about defining your gaps and finding suitable people. And you know which skills you need because you’ve written your strategy. So I think That’s a shining moment that I’ve learned from someone else and you’re actually putting that to work. That is key. And then the diversity, studying facilitation, one of the things as a conductor, I know how to pull people together, but for running meetings, I always wanted somebody that didn’t know anything about the topic, what was a really good thinker and would be a team player and could help us from getting in a trap. So diversity represented itself. There’s even old white guys, but not a whole bunch of old white hair people on the board, but that is so good to get, the ideas from the different sector. Any more you want to illuminate before I go on? I wanted to highlight those as key pieces.

Michelle Bockman

Yeah. And I, you know, diversity, when I, when I say diversity, it’s not diversity of skin, it’s diversity of thought and action. And so I just wanted to make sure that that was understood, which can come from your background, but it doesn’t necessarily have to.

Hugh Ballou

No, it does not. And, you know, really, um, we learn things from people that don’t look like us and don’t think like us. So that’s really, that’s a, for me, I love that. So, um, I want to talk about KeraLink as an example, but before we go there, we tend to use. excuses as reasons, like I don’t want to do a strategy because it limits my creativity, or we don’t have all of the resources of a Fortune 500 company, so we can’t do anything. So how do we get past the excuse to use some reasonable thinking to employ some of those?

Michelle Bockman

Well, when it comes to resources, the way I look at it before I go to resources like focus, focus and priority. So prioritize what we’re doing in the business and then look at the dollars, the budget to actually be able to support that and then prioritize and just stay with those priorities and don’t get too distracted by this shiny object as we know it’s easy to do. I mean, it’s very easy to do with AI and everything else. You read a new article, and it’s like, oh, that looks interesting. And so all of a sudden, you go down a rabbit hole, and you come back up, and you’re like, oh, maybe not.

Hugh Ballou

I think that’s a shining example of who we are as entrepreneurs. We get distracted on the next. I was going to show you a website toward the end, but we’re going to talk about KeraLink. So let me pull it up, if that’s OK. So when people go, give them what the URL is.

Michelle Bockman

It’s www.keralink.org — K-E-R-A-L-I-N-K dot org.

Hugh Ballou

Now, when they go there, what will they find?

Michelle Bockman

They will find a person with their eyes right at the front. And our rally cry is Vision for All. And so that is what we stand behind. We talk about giving access to people with avoidable blindness in low- to middle-income communities. So that’s really what we’re all about. And so you can give glasses, a pair of glasses to individuals in the US in these communities where we do work like in Missouri with a partner there in Missouri kids site. where we go into schools and get screenings to children and give them glasses. And so you’ll see a little kid on the front page and then you’ll see our initiative, 30, 30, 30. So we are to raise $30 million to reach 30 million people by impacting their lives by the end of 2030.

Hugh Ballou

This is so good. I spend my life helping people think about their future vision. And I have all kinds of excuses from people. And I even hear, well, who am I to tell God what I’m gonna do? And I say, well, if God gave you a vision, this is you recognizing it and being accountable to it. So you’ve put your accountability right up front and thinking a five-year window gives you some runway to get there. And you’ve expressed it in present tense. These are the targets. And so I commend you. What’s happened to me in all of my work is when I’ve been publicly accountable and transparent with my goals, people know how to participate. So I want to highlight this one of the shining examples of excellent leadership for people who are listening or watching. So I interrupted you. Is there any more you want to talk about your website before we go to the rest of the questions?

Michelle Bockman

As you go towards the bottom, there’s an ecosystem approach that we use, which is essentially our community-based work in the U. S., which I just mentioned. It’s not only just little kids, but it’s people in need who need access to eye care. Then the work that we do in India, specifically India and a lot of other countries where we’ve trained women leaders in partnership with several partners to go door-to-door and do screenings and to shepherd those folks who need to go to hospitals to do that. We fund that and we’re heavily integrated into that ecosystem. In parallel, we’re developing technology that can be used in these community areas, and our framework is around prevention, early detection, and novel treatments. And so we’re developing technologies that will be, when they do go live, they will be going into those markets using the same folks that we’re partnering with today in our community-based programs.

Hugh Ballou

I’m in the process of launching my 19th book, which is about creating a fundable nonprofit. And what you’re demonstrating is you’ve very clearly talked about the impact of your work, which is one of the many elements. I mean, you’ve got so many of them together. So that’s, I want to People that are in the audience, this is a great example of what is important to be successful nonprofit in any measure and then to generate the revenue. We don’t want to talk about money, but it’s sort of like you buy a new car, you got to put gas in it for it to go anywhere. So this case, it’s the money that helps you achieve your, get your destination. So that’s KeraLink, and the link will be on the page for this interview. K-E-R-A-L-I-N-K, and I’ll have that in the, so we’ll refer to that. So let’s speak a little bit more about the diversifying your revenue. In business, you gotta have diversity or you’ll go broke. So one source of revenue, it’s a death trap for any enterprise. So why is it more important in a nonprofit?

Michelle Bockman

I think we all know how the economy can change. Different administrations come in and make choices with federal funding. And so that’s just one example. There’s many other things that can affect or impact the way you bring in revenue if you’re just a single source of revenue. And that can just take your business down. So by diversifying the way we bring in revenue, it is a risk-averse strategy and I think short-term and long-term. Donors come in to donate for the community work that we do, the program work that we do. Then technology, as well as grants, we apply for whether it’s through corporations or foundations. There’s many ways that we try to get these grants and then, on the other hand, we have these technologies that go through a venture studio process so it’s from ideation through spin out of the business we’ve spun out one of them. That is an artificial cornea that we’re developing today. Then we have three more technologies that are in the path to be spun out. That revenue, once we go live, we go to market, that revenue will go back into the nonprofit because the nonprofit is a shareholder of those businesses, but we will look for investors as well. Then there’s many other facets of revenue. We have an eyewear business that people can go online and buy eyewear and all the profits go to the nonprofit. We really use that eyewear site to fund or to actually feed our community-based work. Those are a couple of examples. We also have invested in companies and we get returns on those. And we’ve made grants to others where we’re working on licensing deals. So we’ve looked across the board and tried to diversify as much as possible.

Hugh Ballou

That is key. It’s part of rethinking who we are as leaders of a tax-exempt business, a for-purpose business. It’s called earned income, business-generated. It’s mission-related. But you’ve also created a business entity that doesn’t have the restrictions of a nonprofit. And then the profits come over to the nonprofit, which is, as long as you have the correct accounting for both of those, that’s a really good plan.

Michelle Bockman

Yeah.

Hugh Ballou

We don’t think about it. We think about limitations, not the opportunity. So, this is, folks listening, I’m talking too much. There’s people, you demonstrate what you teach in your work. So, thank you for that.

Michelle Bockman

No problem.

Hugh Ballou

Partnerships. You sort of partner with yourself, but you talk about partnerships as a force multiplier. Would you say more about that?

Michelle Bockman

We have partnerships with our technology groups, we have partnerships with our program groups, and then we have partnerships that bridge the two together. So they’re imperative to what we do. So as an example, Shroffs Hospital in India is one of our partners. which is a voluntary optometrist association. And we’re partnering with them, Prevent Blindness for policy, you know, government policy and having some influence there. So our partnerships are key to everything we do. And especially like in India, where we have people in India, but the bulk of our team is here in the U. S. And so we need strong partnerships there that are, you know, their expertise are not our expertise. And we have the same mission. So the success of our partnerships is about having a shared vision and a shared mission and the passion behind it. And I don’t know how many partnerships we have, but we have quite a few. And that is behind the success of everything we do.

Hugh Ballou

So what I hear in the multiplication is it multiplies the effort of each partner and it brings more benefit to the recipients because you’re working together.

Michelle Bockman

Yes.

Hugh Ballou

In my work, the word collaborate is not understood in this sector and you’ve just defined it.

Michelle Bockman

Yeah, I an example is Johns Hopkins. So we work with them we work with their startup area, we actually have folks who are practicing medicine there that who are on our board. And so we partner with them with technology development, and then we partner with them with their students. that have a program there called Vision, and they go into the communities and do screenings in the Baltimore communities. And we are there as a partner to help them with equipment, help them with training, and then we provide eyewear to them. So you can see that one partnership has both sides of our business, which is the technology and the program side.

Hugh Ballou

So when I used to go to the circus, there was the guy with the wheels, the plates on the sticks and they get them. And there’s a limit to how many you can do unless you have somebody else there tweaking. So I think scalability and sustainability come in my mind. You want to scale it, but you also want to create something sustainable. And you’ve got the culture that also embraces innovation. So the, as a conductor, the culture, the orchestra, the choir reflects the leader. And, um, I would love to meet your team because I bet they reflect your spirit of innovation.

Michelle Bockman

Yeah, so our team is what’s interesting I know one of your questions and you haven’t asked it is about change and being able to pivot, like when something doesn’t work. And how does that affect the team that that’s my interpretation of the question but um. My team has this philosophy: “Let’s try it.”, let’s try it. If it doesn’t work, we’ll stop doing it and do something else and try that. So it’s just about stopping something as fast as you can. So you’re not burning through a lot of money if it costs money, but trying ideas, innovating. ideating and seeing if something actually sticks to the wall. And I’m talking about like marketing, business operations, development, our fund development department. They’re always trying new things to see what resonates with folks.

Hugh Ballou

Have you got the ability to go five minutes long today? I want to explore.

Michelle Bockman

Yeah, yeah, sure.

Hugh Ballou

So we usually try to give people a 25-minute session, but you know, this one is some good stuff to cover. Yes, there’s way more questions that I think about than I could ask, but let’s just focus on, I got some rapid fire questions, which might help clarify some more things. So innovation or execution, which one is harder?

Michelle Bockman

You know, I think they’re both really, really important, but I would say execution is harder because there are ideas everywhere. You can always find, you know, you brainstorm a bunch of ideas, but being able to execute it is really important. And if you have one without the other, it doesn’t work.

Hugh Ballou

No, and they work together. You got to be willing to innovate, and then you got to be able to pull it off. And actually, the stuff you’ve talked about are what funders look for, the collaboration piece, the execution, the skill set. Everything you’ve talked about are what grantmakers look at, corporate sponsors, donors. So these are all building blocks for your fundability. So give me one word that describes a truly scalable nonprofit.

Michelle Bockman

I would say sustainability. Because if we are going to go into a community and just leave and it was a one and done kind of program or even technology, then that’s not worth doing. We need to teach the people skills in the local areas so they can sustain whatever it is that we’re doing, whether it’s bringing technology in and they can use the technology or if there’s a training individual workers on a local basis, what we do, so then they can take it from there. And we just continue to train folks. We even have these fellows who go through a program that we’ve sponsored, and they get cross-trained from the retina to the cornea. And with that, they are able to impact so many lives. by the fact that now they can see two types of individuals or two types of problems that patients might have and that they can actually cure.

Hugh Ballou

Love it. So what’s a business discipline that every nonprofit leader should understand?

Michelle Bockman

Well, I kind of talked about this earlier, the resource allocation. It’s like you only have so much money, and then how are you going to spend it? And being able to make the decisions to spend it in the right manner, whether it’s in people, money, equipment, whatever it is, like having an office. Maybe you do away with the office so you have more money to develop technology. So being able to allocate the right balance of resources for your mission.

Hugh Ballou

Everything you talked about deserves repeating, because maybe some slow host doesn’t get it. But so what’s one leadership lesson that you learned the hard way?

Michelle Bockman

I would say the one leadership lesson, you know, one that I like to break is, and sometimes, you know, when I’m in a role for too long, it’s, you know, we keep doing it because we’ve always done it that way. That’s one I like to break. But once in a while, I’ll catch myself. We’ve done it like that before. And I’m like, nope, nope, nope. I need to pull back and say, no, no, no. Let’s ideate. Let’s think of a different way to do this. But it’s easy to slip into, so easy to slip into.

Hugh Ballou

Bunch of good words today. I’ve been doing this a long time. I’m learning some good stuff today. So as a result of what you’ve shared today, what’s one thing you would like people to do differently as a result of today?

Michelle Bockman

I think it’s really about thinking differently, thinking outside the box, taking the time to do that, your team, the time to take a step back, look forward and look at the future and using the tools that are out there. We didn’t talk much about AI, but AI is a disruptor right now, but it can also be your friend. And so using that technology in the right way, But, you know, I would just say thinking differently, thinking outside the box from the normal nonprofit world.

Hugh Ballou

Very sage advice, Michelle, thank you for helping us reframe innovation. It’s really to me, it’s a mission tool rather than a corporate luxury. You know, we’ve that mindset shift has been so important today. The challenge for nonprofit leaders is not simply to work harder, at the model they already have, but to ask whether there is a more scalable, sustainable, and effective way to create the impact we exist for. That’s what we’re here for. So, you’ve been listening to the Nonprofit Exchange. I’m Hugh Ballou, the host. Remember, leadership is not about doing all the work yourself. It’s about building the systems, the relationships, and the capacity that allow the mission to thrive. Thank you for joining us, and thank you so much, Michelle, for sharing your wisdom with our audience. on the Nonprofit Exchange today.

Michelle Bockman

Thank you. I really appreciate it.

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Collaborate to Innovate: Unlocking Success in Nonprofit Partnerships — Focuses on collaboration as a way to increase capacity, revenue, efficiency, and impact, closely matching Michelle’s description of partnerships as a force multiplier.

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