Navigating Growth & Innovation Alongside Mission

Rey Ramsey is a social justice entrepreneur, impact investor, author, and cross-sector executive with more than three decades of leadership experience spanning nonprofits, philanthropy, government, technology, community development, and investment. He serves as President and CEO of the Nathan Cummings Foundation and is also Founder and CEO of Century Capital, an impact investment firm focused on real estate development and affordable housing. Rey is the author of The Tyranny of False Choices: A Guide to Authentic Decision Making and co-author of ManagingNonprofits.org: Dynamic Management for the Digital Age. His work helps leaders move beyond false either-or choices and make values-driven decisions that create greater impact.

For more information go to – https://reyramsey.com/

 

The Interview Summary

In this episode of The Nonprofit Exchange, Hugh Ballou welcomes Rey Ramsey for a timely conversation on “Navigating Growth & Innovation Alongside Mission.” Rey challenges nonprofit leaders to reconsider one of the sector’s most common assumptions: that organizational growth automatically equals greater impact. Bigger budgets, more programs, larger facilities, and higher participation numbers may signal activity, but they do not necessarily demonstrate that the organization is solving the problem it exists to address.

Rey encourages leaders to keep their organization’s North Star—mission, values, and intended impact—at the center of every decision. He explains how both internal pressures and external incentives from funders can push nonprofits toward measuring success by size rather than effectiveness. When organizations begin looking inward instead of focusing on the people they serve, Rey describes this as the “intermediary’s dilemma.”

Drawing from his book, The Tyranny of False Choices: A Guide to Authentic Decision Making, Rey explores how leaders can move beyond either-or thinking, social pressure, familiar assumptions, and “default decisions.” He emphasizes intellectual humility, knowing oneself, expanding the aperture of thought, and remaining attentive to one’s moral compass. He also shares a powerful leadership experience from his time as Chairman of Habitat for Humanity International, illustrating the courage required to make difficult, principle-based decisions even when those decisions carry a personal cost.

The conversation also explores the responsibility leaders have to elevate others. Rey describes his practice of creating “oxygen sessions”—safe environments where staff and board members can ask questions, challenge assumptions, and explore ideas without fear of judgment. He reminds leaders that leadership is not demonstrated simply by mastering one’s own role, but by developing the capacity of the people around them.

Rey and Hugh also discuss mission creep, impact investing, critical thinking, experimentation, perseverance, and enlightened disruption—Rey’s term for intentionally challenging existing structures when change is necessary to better serve the organization’s purpose. His central challenge is clear: innovation should never become an end in itself. If a new initiative is not improving the core elements of the mission, leaders should be willing to reconsider it—or even press delete.

Ultimately, this conversation invites nonprofit leaders to ask a more important question than “How big can we become?”: “Are we creating better outcomes for the people we exist to serve?” Growth matters when it strengthens the mission. Innovation matters when it advances impact. And effective leadership requires the courage to make decisions that remain faithful to both.

Key themes include: mission-centered growth; innovation without mission drift; funder incentives and meaningful metrics; moral courage and authentic decision-making; intellectual humility; elevating others; overcoming false choices; and using “enlightened disruption” to create better outcomes.

The Interview Transcript

Hugh Ballou

Greetings, everybody. This is the Nonprofit Exchange, and I am Hugh Ballou. This is, I don’t know how many episodes, but we’re approaching 700. And it’s a series of conversations with people who’ve done great things. And nobody has all the wisdom, but we have a lot when we put it together. So we explore leadership practices, strategies, and ideas that help nonprofit leaders create greater impact. My guest today is Rey Ramsey. He just got off a train. He’s ready to go. And our conversation is titled Navigating Growth and Innovation Alongside Mission. Rey Ramsey is a social justice entrepreneur, impact investor, author, and cross-sector executive with more than three decades of leadership experience spanning nonprofits, philanthropy, government, technology, community development, and investment. He serves as president and CEO of the Nathan Cummings Foundation, where he has helped advance the foundation’s commitment to align its endowment with its mission. He is also founder and CEO of Century Capital, an impact investment firm focused on real estate development and affordable housing as a platform for human advancement. His leadership journey includes serving as President and COO of Enterprise Community Partners, Chairman of Habitat for Humanity International, Founding CEO and Chairman of One Economy Corporation, and President and CEO of TechNet. Ray is the author of Tyranny of False Choices, a guide to authentic decision-making, and co-author of ManagingNonprofits.org: Dynamic Management for the Digital Age. His work challenges leaders to move beyond false either-or choices and design solutions that are both values-driven and effective. Rey, welcome to the Nonprofit Exchange. Let’s begin with the tension at the heart of today’s topic. When does growth strengthen a nonprofit mission and when does growth begin to compete with it? Welcome.

Rey Ramsey

Welcome Hugh and I approach this with humility as I did with the whole book because as you and I both know, no one has all the answers. So in answer to your question, the way I view it is take a look at the situation that you’re in, because all situations are different, but always know what the North Star is, your own North Star, but the North Star of your organization. What do you value? What’s important? So if you just grow for the sake of growing, and it’s outside of the light cast by your North Star, you’re going in the wrong direction. You’re moving in the dark. I’ll tell you a quick story, and I mentioned it in the Tyranny of False Choices, my book, Years ago, when I was the housing secretary for the state of Oregon, I went on a tour, and the tour was in the city of Eugene because we funded food banks. And I’ll never forget the woman who was the executive director. She was showing me the food bank, and she should have been impressed. It was an impressive building, series of buildings. However, this moment really hit me that something was wrong when all of her energy and excitement was poured into telling me that in a few years, they were going to outgrow the facility. And there seemed to be this excitement that it’s like, here we are today with a building, but we’re going to outgrow it in a few years. And I viewed that cue as a missed opportunity because the mission is ultimately about helping people not be hungry. Hopefully one day working yourself out of business. And I just felt we’re missing something here. And over the course of my career, I saw too many nonprofits, but also the funders of nonprofits place all the emphasis on size. Bigger, bigger, bigger, better, better, better. But we seldom step back and say, well, what’s happening with the problem, and is what we’re doing efficacious? Is it actually working? And so you can go down this trap of just thinking about growth, but at the same time, your balance sheet is also important. So it’s not to say ignore the balance sheet. And that’s why it becomes the false choice.

Hugh Ballou

That’s an ego-driven thing. I see that as a common issue. So why do people have a problem distinguishing? What’s the root of this? Why do they confuse the growth with the impact growth? Because you’re right, we should be working ourselves out of business. So why do people get that confused?

Rey Ramsey

I think part of it, there’s an internal and an external. The external is that there are misplaced incentives. And so you are showered by external incentives where your funders are measuring their own thing, and they’re only looking at growth. They’re not looking at what’s efficacious. You will be written up if you’ve doubled or tripled in size. You’ll get the articles. So there’s that external, you know, light that you seek. But what is more important is what drives you from the inside. And from the inside, we should be driven by solving problems. We should be driven by solutions. We should be driven mostly around helping individuals achieve a sense of agency. And so sometimes nonprofits, any intermediary, they might begin in the right place. I call it the intermediary’s dilemma, where you start off serving the customer or the client, but it soon turns into an inward-looking exercise. And again, I talk about this as one of the elements to recognize as thought tyranny, where organization looks inward and it’s no longer thinking about who it actually serves. That’s a form of tyranny.

Hugh Ballou

Whoa, there’s the soundbite, folks, but there’s more coming. So as a career, I spent 40 years as a musical conductor, and the culture is a reflection of the leader. So as leaders face hard decisions, The leader and the board, because we’re in this together and like you said none of us – I’m a Southerner – none of us is as smart as all of us. So talk about how we build these differentiators in making these complex decisions. Sometimes there’s a lot that comes at us as a group. Now, the board’s going to respond to us because we are, in fact, the leader. So give us some ideas for how we differentiate in these decisions.

Rey Ramsey

Well, first of all, Hugh, I’m going to respond to the question about decisions, but it’s about having your own mind in the right place as a leader, Before launching into “the decision,” are you in the right place? And so I borrow from, and one of the things I say in my book, The Tyranny of False Choices, is I say I borrow from the passion of poets and the wisdom of philosophers. And the philosopher that I cite most frequently is Socrates. And what is attributed to him, because as you know, he wrote very little, but things are attributed to him, two things: “Know thyself” and “Know that I know little.” And that last point about knowing that I know little is connected to intellectual humility. And there’s something very powerful in that, not pretending that you alone have all the answers. So if your mind is straight with that and you understand yourself better, where your own strengths and weaknesses are, you’re better positioned to lead and establish culture and to get to those decisions. And so I often talk about fixing things from the inside out. And while we work on externals, we have to work on ourselves. And all of us are a work in progress, all of us.

Hugh Ballou

I can say that at 80. I’m learning every day. And you know, I’m old enough that I made a lot of mistakes. Those are learning opportunities as well, right? Yes. So, hold on, you got a copy of your book handy? Yes, I do. Here it is, sir.

Rey Ramsey

The Tyranny of False Choices.

Hugh Ballou

Pretty cool cover. I like it. Well, let’s delve into that a little bit. False Choices and Better Decisions. So, what are some of the learnings from that book that will help us with false choices and better decisions?

Rey Ramsey

One of the first things, Hugh, is recognizing that there are external and internal forces that come together to influence and basically make it harder for us to push through. So the ultimate premise is every human being has a core, a compass that will help guide you. And there’ve been all kinds of studies about the moral compass that we all have. And I think just like any compass, it can be distorted. It can be distracted. You can put things in front of it that block you from your north star. So quickly, externally, algorithms, feeding you what you already believe, peer pressure, social pressure, the political parties, my tribe, your tribe, overall tribalism. These are things that will make you make default decisions. You will default to what my familiar tribe says. You will default to what’s comfortable. Now, as difficult as those external issues are, I know I wrote in my book, and I talk about it, and I call it internal whispers, and we’re all familiar with that and I jokingly say, each of us goes to bed by ourselves, no matter who we’re with, you’re going to sleep by yourself, and your thoughts are with you, and that’s where you get the self-talk. All the things from your past, the things that might inhibit you, all of those internal fears, whether it’s speaking in front of an audience or something like that, it may inhibit your ability to make clear-minded decisions that are aligned with your compass. So that’s what I really talk about, particularly at the beginning of the book, And then my publisher had me do something very powerful, which was and candidly, I didn’t really want to go there, but they said, “Connect it back to you.” And I went all the way back to an experience early in my life when we integrated our neighborhood and some things happened to me. And what I then looked at, and I call them thought tyrants, because these were the people who were determined to make it clear what my expectations of self would be. And I know that that happens to lots of people, whether you’re an adult or a child. Other people will try to set the level of your expectation. And I’ve been saying for years, no one gets to define the boundaries of your destiny, but you.

Hugh Ballou

Ah, that’s a good one. So let’s dig deep. This is a really big issue. I’ve been working with nonprofit leaders over 40 years and I was, you know, church and church work. That’s a nonprofit and I saw a lot of things from the inside. But we make choices for the wrong reasons. So dig in a little deeper. What’s an example of the pressure and how do these false choices show up when They’re not trying to navigate growth specifically.

Rey Ramsey

Yeah, navigating growth or navigating when something potentially bad is happening. And again, the pressure is to conform, to have default thinking. You just revert to what you’re comfortable, what you’re familiar. And then what you do is rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. So if you’ve operated a particular way and you’re less than thrilled with the results, we tend to continue to do similar things. Or if we’ve always made decisions consulting with the same group of people, often people that we’re comfortable with, and we never step outside of that, then you have a problem. Hugh, I’m fond of saying that make a decision between, do you really think that you have the best probability of making the best decision if you have a narrow cast, a narrow point of view versus a wide cast? And so I often talk about expand the aperture, expand your aperture of thought. And so one example that I can give you, and I mentioned this to you in the run-up when we were speaking, which was when I was the chairman of Habitat for Humanity, and one of my heroes, I can call Miller Fuller a hero. I met him early in my life and I patterned a big part of my career after him. This is the man who was the founder of Habitat for Humanity. And to speed forward, I was eventually elected chairman, having started as a volunteer in a church basement. And he and I were going to be working very closely together until I received the phone call that something had happened. And all of the forces were telling me, let it go. Let it go. He’s a hero. He’s won a Presidential Freedom Medal winner. He’s close to President Carter. Let it go. And I kept saying, we have values as an organization. Allegations went against those values. And eventually I had to make a decision to leave this board so that we would terminate his employment. It was one of the hardest decisions of my life but it was the right decision because the gentleman we hired back in the mid 2000s around 2006 and I think it’s roughly that’s the So a gentleman by the name of Jonathan Reckford is now the CEO there. That’s who we hired. And they’ve had a very successful run. The organization continued to grow. So what the choices were, were act, you know, with just haste, which I did not, or just enshrine ourselves with some people were pressuring me to do, which was hero worship. And I did neither. I took a thoughtful approach, investigated, and did what I thought was in the best interest of that institution, and they have grown. Was it hard for me personally? Yes. Did I suffer at moments? Yes, but that goes with the job. I attended his funeral. I was never able to reconcile our friendship, which I long wanted, but I have to live with the fact that the organization today is in great shape and I did the right thing. So that’s a rather dramatic example, but we will all be called to have these defining moments. And these are the moments where you have to choose a course, choose a direction. So do we make decisions every day? Yes, but we will also make larger defining decisions. And what I challenge in the tyranny of false choices is what do you fall back on? Do you have that compass? Are you paying attention to that compass? Yes, you have the compass, but are you paying attention to it? And what is getting in the way?

Hugh Ballou

Are you paying attention to your moral compass? There’s a lot of good soundbites here, which are defining moments for me of, okay, it’s clarity. And so we are We’re leading nonprofits because we have a heart, and we have a heart for people. And sometimes it leads us, and I have to struggle with this, being a pleaser. We want to please people and get approval. But sometimes that turns on us, and they don’t like us because we did not make the principle-based decision. So in strategic planning, which I do with all kinds of organizations, we identify our core values. But they’re static usually until we turn them into what I call guiding principles. How do you apply those values in making decisions? So we do this for organizations. So coming back to your internal compass that you talked about, we don’t do that for ourselves. Do we? What are our principles for leadership? What are our guiding principles? Is that correct?

Rey Ramsey

Correct. Not enough. We don’t do that enough, especially as leaders. And we have to remember that interdependence is a really important value. So a great leader is only great because of their ability to elevate others. And you have to say, am I elevating those around me? I’ve given performance reviews to people and I go, congratulations, you’ve mastered your individual job. The question is, who have you elevated? And so if you think about elevating others, then you’re going to elevate the institution. And every day you’ve got to think about elevating. My hero who changed my life was my sixth grade teacher, because I had been stuck in a very difficult situation. And she made me make a promise to her at graduation in eighth grade. And she said, I believe you’re going to do well, but make me one promise. And I said, Mrs. Pfeiffer, what would that be? She’s passed away. She was like 99 when she died. And she said, never crush a human spirit. And I told her that I would do a little twist on that to dedicate myself to elevating the human spirit. And so in every management role that I’ve been fortunate to have, nonprofit, yes, but also for-profit philanthropy, is what can I do to elevate the human spirit? You can do that on the individual level, primarily, but also look at the organization. One of the terms I talk about in the book – and I share a little bit about Nathan Cummings and the work here, where I’ve been for six years – is something I’ve instituted something that I’ve done in different organizations and they’re called oxygen sessions. So think about oxygen, you know, and just the ability to breathe. And so it’s that safe environment where nothing is considered stupid. You can ask about anything, you can bring up anything, And it creates that environment where it’s okay to ask what you might self-edit yourself as the stupid question. I go, no, there aren’t stupid questions, but by labeling it an oxygen session, people feel good about it. It’s like, “This is my moment. This is my moment.” And we even do it with board meetings. We say, we’re going to have an oxygen session. And so it takes the temperature down and it’s okay for people to free flow.

Hugh Ballou

Remember that, folks, breathe.

Rey Ramsey

Exactly.

Hugh Ballou

And so I’ve served in volunteers with churches, a lot of people, and I’ve had to fire volunteers. Yes. And they always remain friends. So I’m sad about your situation, but I’ve had that too. But it didn’t fit, and they knew it. Now, there’s leadership paralysis. You know, one is that we’ve got too many choices. The other one is we don’t want to hurt somebody’s feeling. So, we have to serve the principles. So, how do we push through this paralysis of not doing something when our spirit says we need to act?

Rey Ramsey

Because mission should be elevated. And it is at the top. And what is your mission? What are your values, your guiding principles? And that is the compass for the organization. And that gives guidance to every single thing that you’re doing. And so when you get these distractions and distortions that will inevitably come your way, You have to question yourself and you have to be willing to question the institution. And sometimes that means questioning the board because we’ll grab onto things. And then you get, as what Peter Drucker and others talk about, you know, mission creep. And you’re doing a lot of things. But are you furthering your mission? Are you in relentless pursuit of solutions? So here at the foundation, one of the biggest things we’ve done at the Nathan Cummings Foundation is to push aside the false choice, which says, well, if you’re going to invest your endowment the endowment should be free to basically invest in anything it wants. And that if you don’t do that, the false choice is you’re going to lose money. Well, that’s not happened. And so over the past six, seven years, we said 100% of our endowment would go toward what is referred to as impact investing, investing that money for an impact, but also to deliver returns so that we could give out grants and do our work. And that has been successful.

Hugh Ballou

That’s brilliant. So people are going to want to know where to find you. So what is your website link?

Rey Ramsey

Well, it’s easy, because it’s Rey with an E: R-E-Y, Ramsey.com. So that’s a good spot to find me. And of course, you know, LinkedIn where I do a lot of work, but our website, which we built around breaking free of false choices, kind of guides you through, tells a few stories and then lets you know where I’m going to be because I enjoy public speaking and speaking in large groups, small groups, or even helping individuals. This is, I wrote The Tyranny of False Choices because it’s not my story alone. It’s all of our stories. We all are bombarded with different things from within or external that make it harder for us to do our work and to do what we need to do. So sometimes it’s just a matter of reframing what’s there. Sometimes it’s willingness, and here we haven’t talked a lot about it, but one of the things I say in the book is, what are some of the tools that are available to us to sort of push back? And so, yes, we have a compass. The compass gets distorted. What are some of the tools? And this is where I lean on philosophers and poets, and I say, every human being has virtues. And the question is, will we call upon our virtues? So in the book, I talk about the virtue of courage. As Emerson would say, shunning conformity, intellectual humility, which I spoke about a little bit earlier, and perseverance. Those are just some of the virtues that we have. There’s a long list of virtues that potentially exist in the world, but I chose to really focus on those three. And then there are time-tested methods that we can use, critical thinking at the top of the list, right? You have to be a critical thinker, but also question data and use data, be able to sift through false narratives, experimentation. So these are all time-tested tools that exist that will help you push through when you have a morass of information coming at you? We have information pollution right now, information overload. How do we sift through? And so we have a compass, lean on your virtues, use time-tested methods. This is what I talk about in the book. And then I say, as a technique in organizations, just to get to one of your underlying questions, is I call it enlightened disruption. And so sometimes you’re going to have to disrupt the organization that you’re in, And if that’s what the times call for, go for it. So, and I call it enlightened because it’s not disruption for the sake of disruption, that’s nihilism, but it is driven by the purpose. And very often reorganizing, refocusing your work of doing new strategies, you should be unbounded when you’re developing a new strategy. Let go of what you were doing in the past. Take out a blank sheet of paper and start anew. That is enlightened disruption.

Hugh Ballou

That is inspiration, sir. So that’s a book that leaders need to have on their bookshelf. Let’s have some fun. You want to do a few rapid fire questions? I would love it. Let’s go. As we wrap up: One word you wish nonprofit leaders would stop using as a synonym for success. Size. Growth or depth, which should come first? Depth. One question leaders should ask before launching a new program.

Rey Ramsey

Why? Because if you don’t ask why, you don’t get to the more liberating question, why not?

Hugh Ballou

Oh, I love it. One leadership assumption worth challenging.

Rey Ramsey

That I have all of the answers since I am called the leader.

Hugh Ballou

I love this. One sign that innovation is becoming mission drift.

Rey Ramsey

When you’ve been doing it for a period of time and none of your core elements of your mission improve. Now it’s time to put that in the wastepaper basket.

Hugh Ballou

And you don’t have to crumple it up.

Rey Ramsey

You don’t have to crumple it up at all.

Hugh Ballou

Don’t take time. You can press delete.

Rey Ramsey

Now you can press delete. I’m dating myself. Just press delete.

Hugh Ballou

I’m in there. So here’s a closing question. Before we close, what is one challenge you would give nonprofit leaders who are trying to grow, innovate, and remain relentlessly faithful to the people and mission they exist to serve?

Rey Ramsey

So you said a challenge or an opportunity? Well, I would say that it’s funny because you want me to keep it short. You have to get started to get started. It means it can’t stay in the cooker forever. You got to pull it out. And the last thing I’ll leave you with is, um, I like the analogy of going to a restaurant and they give you a menu, but if you’re smart, sometimes, even if you don’t like that menu, you’ll ask what the chef is capable of doing. If you never ask that question, you won’t get the most delicious meal.

Hugh Ballou

Thank you for the reminders of, you know, our growth is not our mission. And, you know, there are some principles that we already know, and we just got to sit down with that blank piece of paper and maybe start over. Rey, it’s been a breath of fresh air. Thank you for the inspiration today and the inspiration and wisdom that you shared with our audience on the nonprofit exchange.

Rey Ramsey

Well, Hugh, you’re inspiring and I love being on the nonprofit exchange. Everybody should tune in. Thank you. Take care.