Today we’d like to introduce you to Debby Nicklas, Krista Elmore, Mariko Kriege, And Jane Pomeroy.
Hi Debby Nicklas, Krista Elmore, Mariko Kriege, and Jane Pomeroy, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Change Collective Central Coast started with four co-founders who all crossed paths at Lumina Alliance, with careers spanning decades in the nonprofit sector between us. But recent political and economic tumult threw the sector into uncertainty, and it hit each of us differently. For example, two of us faced the threat of layoffs.
Jane left nonprofit leadership after a decade and had been consulting in LA — work that felt disconnected from her own community. Krista left a corporate job after ten years to bring back the tools she’d built coaching nonprofits and auctioneering across the country to her home market. Mariko left a corporate job to work at a nonprofit more aligned with her values, then went on to consult for nonprofits and local businesses so she could be more rooted in her own community. And Debby, after 18 years building the French Hospital Medical Center Foundation from the ground up, retired but was committed to staying involved, giving back and advancing philanthropy.
We started talking about what it would look like to build a one-stop shop for nonprofits — coaching and teaching the valuable skills that the sector historically isn’t great at: fundraising, marketing, and growth strategy. Eventually the stars aligned, and a long-time dream became a reality.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Not exactly smooth, but a good kind of hard. We had a slow, steady trickle of clients at first, and now momentum has built to the point where we’re working fast and furious to keep up with demand. We’re thrilled to be supporting organizations with missions dedicated to everything from the arts and music education, to youth mentorship, affordable housing and homelessness, higher education, outdoor recreation, legal aid, and more. Building a business from scratch is hard, full stop, and we’re learning as we go. Right now we’re in the middle of hiring staff, which is its own growing pain since we haven’t yet built the infrastructure required to support them. We do think about the economy, but honestly our focus stays on how it’s hitting our clients: Funding isn’t guaranteed for anyone right now, so a big part of our job is helping nonprofits find new funding avenues and new ways to see their challenges as opportunities.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Change Collective Central Coast?
We’re proud to support our community by supporting nonprofits, because nonprofits are infrastructure, not charity. Right now that infrastructure is under real strain. Shifting federal policy and new funding restrictions are creating uncertainty, and many federal awardees have quietly been advised to comb their own policies and grant narratives for trigger words that could disqualify them from funding. Boards are facing impossible calls, like whether to comply with funder requirements that conflict with their own mission. And the people who rely on nonprofits most (immigrants, agricultural workers, people without documentation) are scared and unsure where to turn, which is pushing nonprofits to band together and organize mutual aid so no one in our county falls through the cracks.
On top of that, rising costs for rent, food, utilities, insurance, and gas are squeezing nonprofits the way they’re squeezing everyone, except nonprofits can’t just raise their prices to close the gap. The result is layoffs, program cuts, and doing more with less while serving people with the least.
Here’s why that should matter to anyone reading this: Our county has close to 10,000 nonprofit employees, and they’re your customers and your neighbors. When nonprofit services disappear, the need doesn’t disappear with them; it shows up in emergency rooms, in absenteeism, in a workforce that can’t function. Healthy nonprofits keep our community stable. And we’re so proud to support the health of the sector through our comprehensive and tailored services.
What sets us apart is that we don’t come in with a playbook. Our clients tell us what they need, and we figure out the best way to support them. No two clients are alike, so every engagement is a creative process of learning, adapting, and investing in that organization specifically.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
The honest answer, in one line: Follow your dreams. We each got here by stepping away from something that looked stable (corporate roles, established nonprofit leadership), by taking a risk to do work that felt aligned with our values and with community needs. None of us had it fully figured out going in; we built this as we went, and we’re still building it. Our advice would be to let your clients or your community tell you what they actually need, rather than showing up with a fixed idea of what you’re going to offer. That approach is harder and slower, but ultimately, it’s the only way the work stays honest and impactful.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://changecollectivecc.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/changecollectivecc/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChangeCollectiveCC
- LinkedIn: change-collective-central-coast
