The Business Behind Giving: How Sherry Quam Taylor is Changing the Way Nonprofits Grow
When Sherry Quam Taylor left her corporate career to work in the nonprofit sector, she did not expect it to change the trajectory of her entire life. She was an architecture and design professional on a steady upward climb with no plans to leave the corporate world. Then she started volunteering for a nonprofit doing anti-trafficking work in India, and something clicked.
She was still the same high-achieving, detail-oriented professional. But in the nonprofit world, she found new meaning in scaling something that did not just serve shareholders or clients. It changed lives. When she helped triple that organization’s revenue in just 18 months, during one of the worst economic downturns in modern history, Sherry realized something fundamental: sustainable growth in the nonprofit sector was not about luck or timing. It was about business discipline.
That revelation became the foundation of her company, QuamTaylor LLC, where she teaches nonprofit CEOs how to raise unrestricted, high-impact funding so they can scale their organizations and expand their missions.
From Corporate Climber to Nonprofit Builder
When Sherry made the leap into nonprofit work in 2010, the odds were not in her favor. The housing market had collapsed, architecture firms were cutting staff, and people were saying that no one was giving money away.
But Sherry proved them wrong. By focusing on financial infrastructure, donor alignment, and clear communication, her team grew individual giving despite the economy. She built systems, created repeatable fundraising processes, and applied everything she had learned from corporate strategy to an entirely different kind of organization.
It worked. And in doing that work, she unknowingly built the foundation for her future business.
Nonprofits Are Businesses Too
Today, Sherry works with nonprofit leaders across the country who are ready to grow but are often stuck. They are doing good work, but they are not raising enough unrestricted revenue to scale.
She believes the problem starts with how the sector thinks about fundraising. “We have these huge plans to grow,” she said, “but the activities we are told to do—5Ks, golf outings, small campaigns—do not align with the dollars we actually need.”
Her philosophy is simple and practical: time should align with dollars. Nonprofit CEOs need to spend their limited hours doing high-return work, cultivating the donors who can invest in their vision.
In her framework, the top 30 donors should account for 50 to 75 percent of an organization’s revenue. Those donors are not showing up at fundraising events or responding to social media posts. They are people who see themselves as investors, individuals who want to fund real impact.
That means nonprofit leaders have to learn to speak their language. “We are great at telling the story of changed lives,” Sherry said. “But we also have to tell the financial story. Are we growing? Are we stagnant? What do we need to scale our impact?”
Learning from Each Other: Nonprofit and For-Profit Parallels
Sherry’s work sits at the intersection of mission and margin. Her clients may run nonprofit organizations, but the way she teaches them to think mirrors what any business advisor would teach a for-profit founder: know your numbers, invest in your infrastructure, and spend money to make money.
“I am probably more in the camp that a nonprofit is a business,” she said. “The result of that business is changed lives.”
She is right. Ninety-one (91) percent of nonprofits never reach five million dollars in annual revenue, and more than three-quarters never pass one million. The reason is that many are operating under outdated rules that punish spending.
While for-profit leaders are encouraged to invest forty percent of their budgets in operations and growth, nonprofit boards are often told to keep overhead below ten percent. That belief has crippled countless organizations.
“It is bonkers,” Sherry said plainly. “If you are going to grow your business, you have to spend money.”
Her work often involves demystifying this idea for nonprofit boards, helping them see that investing in leadership, systems, and people is what allows organizations to expand their reach.
Investing in Yourself Pays Off
For Sherry, the last decade has been one long learning curve, and her business growth reflects it. She jokes that if you look at a chart of her company’s quarterly revenue, you can see the exact moments she invested in herself.
“I put little arrows on the chart,” she said. “Every time I invested in coaching, leadership training, or personal development, there is an uptick in revenue right after.”
Those investments changed everything.
“The difference between the first six years of my business and the last four has been investing in coaches,” she said. “I did not realize how much I needed objectivity, mindset work, and someone to help me get out of my head.”
That mindset now shapes how she works with clients. When nonprofit leaders come to her feeling stuck, she encourages them to take a step back, gain perspective, and build systems before chasing the next campaign.
It is a lesson that applies to any business: growth requires objectivity.
The Power of Saying No
Sherry’s business hit its biggest stride when she learned how to say no.
“When I started saying no to clients who were not the best fit, everything changed,” she said. “It freed up space for my ideal clients, the ones I could truly serve.”
It is a principle she applies to fundraising too. Not every donor is the right donor. “Just because someone has money does not mean they are your perfect supporter,” she said. “If they do not care about what you do, bless and release.”
That phrase, bless and release, has become something of a personal mantra for Sherry. It is about alignment, confidence, and trust in timing. And in her experience, the moment a leader learns to say no to the wrong opportunities, the right ones show up.
Raising Future CEOs
Sherry’s not just building a business. She is building future leaders at home too.
Her two daughters, adopted internationally at ages nine and eleven, have watched her build a company from the ground up. They have seen the long nights, the client wins, and the celebrations that follow.
“They know when I land a client,” she said. “They will ask, ‘Where are we going to dinner?’ They know I am not cooking that night.”
She talks about her work openly at the dinner table, shares both wins and losses, and treats business as something that belongs in family conversations.
“I grew up in a family of farmers,” she said. “Farming is a business. At Thanksgiving, the men would talk about transactions, land, strategy, and the women were listening. So I want my daughters to see what leadership looks like in real time. They need to see their mom being a successful businesswoman.”
Her daughters have absorbed the lesson. One wants to go to business school, and the other is exploring computer science. Both, she says, are future CEOs in the making.
Planning Beyond the Business
Even as her company grows, Sherry is thinking long term. She laughs when she admits she has what she calls her “death spreadsheet,” a full financial projection that tracks family goals for the next fifty years.
Her husband teases her for it, but it is also what makes her a strong business owner. She is always thinking about the next phase.
“I had not really thought about what happens to my business after I retire,” she said. “But Aggie pushed me to think about that, what happens next, how I design the next chapter. I do not ever see myself stopping cold turkey, but I want to have options.”
That reflection is not about fear. It is about freedom. “It is fun to plan,” she said. “I get to design what my life looks like with flexibility instead of stress.”
Authentic Leadership and the Psychology of Voice
One of Sherry’s favorite lessons to teach clients, and one she has learned herself, is the power of authenticity.
“I have worked with leaders who think they have to become someone else to be effective,” she said. “They think they need to act like a certain kind of fundraiser. But people can see through that. You attract the right people when you show up as yourself.”
That belief has been reinforced through her own voice coaching work. She reminds her clients that relationships and trust, not transactions, are what move the needle in both business and fundraising.
“You do not have to talk to two hundred people at a networking event,” she said. “Focus on three to five meaningful conversations. That is where real relationships are built.”
Using Doubt as Fuel
Early in her journey, a former colleague told Sherry that she would never be able to grow her consulting business beyond a certain point on her own. “He said, ‘You will only get so far. You will come knocking on our door in two years.’”
She remembers how it felt, and how it motivated her.
“I thought, challenge accepted,” she said. “That conversation fueled me for years. I wanted to prove that I could build something successful, something meaningful, on my own terms.”
She did. And now, her success is measured not just in revenue, but in the ripple effect she has created by teaching nonprofit leaders to lead boldly and think differently.
Investing in Yourself Is the Ultimate Strategy
As the episode closes, Sherry offers one final piece of advice to entrepreneurs, founders, and nonprofit leaders alike: invest in yourself.
“Sometimes we take risks on everything else, jobs, clients, opportunities, but not on ourselves,” she said. “If you are willing to take that risk and back yourself, it will pay off tenfold. You just have to do the work.”
Sherry’s story is proof of that. A decade ago, she took a leap of faith from corporate to nonprofit. Today, she runs a thriving advisory firm, coaches leaders nationwide, and models what it means to lead with both strategy and heart.
She has built a business that changes lives, not just through the nonprofits she helps, but through the example she sets for every woman watching her.
-
Learn more about Sherry’s work: www.quamtaylor.com
Listen to Sherry’s podcast: The Business Behind Fundraising
