Jessye Kass Karlin, founder of Riverwalker Talent, built a nonprofit recruitment and fractional HR practice on a simple habit: once she's under the hood of a search, she asks if the client wants more support. One recruitment contract turned into a three-year fractional partnership that eventually rebuilt 20% of an organization's team.

Jessye and Cindy dig into the contract language she uses to head off scope creep before it starts, including built-in communication agreements and response-time commitments, and the sliding-scale pricing model that lets her serve smaller-budget nonprofits without discounting her own expertise. She's also candid about the boundary-setting she didn't have in her first two years, when she answered client emails at midnight, and what shifted once she treated boundaries as contract terms instead of personal willpower.

Key Takeaways

• A single recruitment search can become a longer fractional partnership - Jessye's approach is to offer the expanded scope once she understands the organization's real needs, not to lead with it.
• Boundaries work better written into the contract than held as a personal intention - Jessye's contracts spell out response times, business hours, and communication norms up front.
• Scope creep is rarely intentional. Offering a client two or three priced options for added work, instead of a flat yes or no, makes the trade-offs visible and keeps the relationship collaborative.
• Reframing a pricing conversation as "can we collaborate on a solution" instead of "you'll need to pay more" changes how clients receive it.

Guest Bio

Jessye Kass Karlin is the founder of Riverwalker Talent, a nonprofit recruitment and fractional HR firm. She spent 15 years in direct nonprofit service, including as an executive director, before building her firm from a solo recruiting practice into a team of consultants.

Resources + Links

Riverwalker Talent

Connect with Jessye

Website | LinkedIn

Fracture is for nonprofit professionals who refuse to choose between doing good work and having a good life. Hosted by Cindy Wagman, founder of the Nonprofit Fractionals Network, it's real talk on building a fractional consulting business that actually pays - and still matters.

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CF Callihan, founder of Heart Strategy Impact, tried fractional fundraising first. A promising first client went quiet for three weeks before the contract even started, and when the work finally began, CF found himself trying to cram a full-time job into a fractional container. The work paid, but it didn't give him joy - a signal he eventually learned to trust.

Instead of ongoing, retainer-style fractional work, CF now coaches nonprofit leaders and boards to build stronger relationships with their own donors. He credits messaging work with turning his business development from chasing leads to fielding inbound calls.

Key Takeaways

• Not every nonprofit consultant should be a fractional consultant - CF tried it, recognized it wasn't giving him joy, and pivoted to a coaching and strategy model instead.
• A client relationship can go quiet without being malicious - CF's first big client ghosted him for weeks before ever starting, which nearly derailed his early business development.
• Clear messaging changes what business development feels like - after working through a StoryBrand-based framework, CF went from chasing clients to getting inbound meetings from people he'd never met.
• Being able to say "that's not what I do" is a business development asset, not a liability - it builds trust and often earns a referral instead.

Guest Bio

CF Callihan is the founder of Heart Strategy Impact, a fundraising consultancy coaching small to mid-sized nonprofit leaders and boards on individual donor relationships. He is based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Resources + Links

Heart Strategy Impact | Fundraising Superpower Quiz

Connect with CF

Website | LinkedIn

Fracture is for nonprofit professionals who refuse to choose between doing good work and having a good life. Hosted by Cindy Wagman, founder of the Nonprofit Fractionals Network, it's real talk on building a fractional consulting business that actually pays - and still matters.

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Tess Conrad, CFRE first appeared on this podcast as a fully-booked generalist fractional fundraiser. Since then, she's niched her business into planned giving - a deliberate, gradual shift sped up by an endorsement from a well-known planned giving expert who saw her as a successor.

She also lived through the scenario a lot of fractionals fear but rarely plan for: an unplanned two-month medical leave that stretched to four, followed by a long-term client relationship ending unexpectedly right after she returned. Half her income disappeared at once. An emergency fund, a subcontractor network, and a return to basic business development brought her back to fully booked within months.

Key Takeaways

• Niching into a long-sales-cycle specialty like planned giving takes patience - Tess expects to be fully booked in her niche by mid-2027, years after she started positioning for it.
• An emergency fund isn't optional once you're running a fractional business - it's what let Tess take medical leave without panicking about income.
• Line up subcontractors before you need them. Tess's network covered her client relationships during her leave and kept continuity with the organizations she serves.
• Content built around a specific niche compounds - weekly LinkedIn posts and a weekly newsletter kept Tess visible in planned giving even while she wasn't taking new clients.
• Time management systems will keep changing as your business does. Tess moved from Asana to Motion to pen and paper, adjusting each time her client mix shifted.

Guest Bio

Tess Conrad, CFRE, is the principal consultant at Full Potential Fundraising, specializing in fractional and done-for-you planned giving for nonprofits. She previously built a fully-booked generalist fractional fundraising practice before niching into legacy and planned giving work.

Resources + Links

Full Potential Fundraising

Connect with Tess

Website | LinkedIn

Fracture is for nonprofit professionals who refuse to choose between doing good work and having a good life. Hosted by Cindy Wagman, founder of the Nonprofit Fractionals Network, it's real talk on building a fractional consulting business that actually pays - and still matters.

Subscribe to Fracture | Join the OS