The Power of Community-Led Growth for Not-for-Profits | Mark Dombkins @ Loop: 2025

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We are a community for community builders. We serve businesses to build the most impactful communities of our time.

Why? Because community building is the new currency & the next best business strategy. But building an impactful one can be tough, exhausting & lonely. We're here to change that and we’re taking you there with us.

How? Through our 8-week Community Cohort to build a community strategy for a business, recruitment to hire top community talent or coaching for 1-1 support.

#community #engagement #communitybuilding

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Mark Dombkins, Founder of Forever Projects [   / @foreverprojects  ], shares how nonprofits can build thriving communities that drive sustainable impact. Through the story of ending the Tanzania orphan crisis by empowering women through income generation, Mark shares a proven framework for transforming supporters into active community members. With Forever Projects having raised over $2 million and impacted nearly 2,800 families, he demonstrates how personal storytelling, clear mission articulation, and culture-building can create movements that solve problems both locally and globally.

In this session Mark shares:
✅ The origin story framework - Using your personal journey as a bridge between mission and movement to create authentic connection
✅ The "bad thing, your thing, good thing" storytelling model - A simple structure for articulating your nonprofit's problem and solution with clarity
✅ Seth Godin's "smallest viable audience" strategy - Starting with 60 committed people instead of chasing mass audiences from day one
✅ The "What's in your hands?" philosophy - Meeting supporters where they are by inviting contributions of time, talent, money, or network based on their season of life
✅ Trust-based philanthropy principles - Empowering local partners with autonomy to innovate rather than micromanaging spending
✅ The dual transformation model - Solving problems for both beneficiaries (women in Tanzania) and supporters (community members seeking hope and connection)

KEY TAKEAWAY: People don't just want to give to your cause, they want to transform themselves through contributing to something bigger, and your job as a nonprofit leader is to create the culture and pathways that make that transformation possible.

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Introduction to Forever Projects and community-led growth for nonprofits
02:20 - Mark's origin story: From fostering in Tanzania to founding Forever Projects
04:30 - Your story as the bridge between mission and movement
06:50 - The problem: 12,000 babies separated from families annually in Tanzania due to poverty
07:50 - The solution: 12-month program providing nutrition, support, and income capital
09:20 - Articulating your mission with the "bad thing, your thing, good thing" framework
11:40 - Building culture with "people like us do things like this"
12:30 - The "What's in your hands?" community philosophy and diverse contribution pathways
14:10 - Impact milestone: 2,800 babies, 2,000+ women, $2M raised through community
14:40 - Q&A: Testing impact experiments and meeting communities where they are
17:00 - The importance of practical empathy in community building
19:20 - Measuring outcomes vs outputs: Weight gain, income growth, and partnership with Global Development Group
21:30 - Personal challenges: Separating founder identity from organization and focusing on priorities
24:20 - Life architecture: Putting your oxygen mask on first to serve sustainably

Resources Mentioned:
🔗 Seth Godin's "People like us do things like this" - Seven-word definition of culture for community building https://seths.blog/wp-content/uploads...
🔗 Global Development Group - Partner organization for impact measurement and audit reporting for nonprofits https://globaldevelopmentgroup.org/

About the Speaker:
Mark Dombkins is the founder of Forever Projects, a non-profit ending the Tanzanian orphan crisis through income creation for women and nutrition for their babies. Funds raised by the Forever Projects community fuel their Tanzanian partners, who deliver a bespoke 12-month program:

Income creation for women
Nutrition for their babies
Families together, forever.

As the Forever Projects community finds purpose by contributing to the transformation of others, they find themselves transformed in the process, too.

Mark lives in Wollongong, Australia, with his wife Anna and six children, three of whom they adopted while working in Tanzania between 2010-13.

About Loop Summit: Loop is a 24-hour global community summit hosted by CMX, Led by Community, and The Community Collective.