Words by Morgan Mercer | Photos by Sarah White

Pollen is celebrating the 14 businesses that have come together in support of Pollen’s mission to build better connected communities. Together, these businesses challenge Pollenites to raise $15,000 by December 31, which they will match dollar for dollar. Donate today and join them in their investment to power human connection. 

The classic debate of nature versus nurture is still alive and well in the Toscano household. Did Dania get her knack for fundraising from a special gene her parents passed down to her, or because she started listening to her dad’s fundraising lectures when she was just three years old? Regardless of how it happened, Dania Toscano Miwa took that drive to transform mission-oriented organizations into sustainable businesses and opened her own consulting firm in 2011. She even brought her dad, Jim Toscano, on board as her partner.

Together, Toscano Advisors boasts more than 60 years of collective experience in nonprofit management including executive recruitment, capital campaigns, and constituency building. Producing sustainable businesses—whether that means creating a supportive company culture for employees or connecting donors to a mission—is an art. That’s where Dania’s creative brain thrives (she knits, plays the harp, and paints watercolor on the side). For her, it’s not just the mechanics and numbers that make strategic planning or fundraising successful. Instead, it’s about reimagining an organization from 3,000 feet up, and uniting people around a common mission to move toward a better place together.

Pollen: What’s your favorite way to meet new people?

Dania Toscano Miwa: My favorite way to meet new people is through new clients, but I also meet new people waiting in the line at the grocery store or at the gas station. I’m an outgoing and friendly person, so I talk to people everywhere I go. I’ve always had an ability to find commonality with someone. It can be as simple as this someone who buys the same brand of bread as me at the grocery store. That’ll be enough for me to open the door. I also smile at people constantly in public. I noticed that people often don’t acknowledge you when you walk past them on the street. Instead, they go out of their way to look at the sky or at their feet. I started a social experiment where I smiled at every single person I passed for a year. For the most part, the people who noticed me smiling at them would smile back. That little moment was powerful.

Pollen: How do you go beyond the transactional and begin to find meaning and depth in your work?

Dania Toscano Miwa: I’ve never been good at transactional.

If it’s not about the human connection, I’m not interested.

That has been a bit of a challenge in my work. I’ve had clients in the past where we got to a place where the work was purely transactional because that’s what they needed. I struggled because I felt like I wasn’t doing enough for them. They would say, “No, this is all we need.” But those clients are difficult for me because I want to have that soul match. I want to know what I’m doing on a soul level that’s making a difference in the world.

Pollen: What were some of the greatest risks you took as a small business owner?

Dania Toscano Miwa: Quitting my job with two small children at home. I’ve been fortunate. Consulting is so feast or feminine, and typically I either have too much business or not enough. It’s tricky. The unpredictability of the workflow is a challenge. I know some people get nervous about that, but I’ve had the wherewithal to coast through those down times.

Pollen: What are the core values of your business? What is the story behind how you arrived at those values?

Dania Toscano Miwa: We never went through a traditional business plan. The core values of the business are the core values Jim and I have as people.

1. The first is the idea of lifelong learning. We encourage our clients to have this, too, and to look at how they can continue to innovate their current business practices to improve their outcomes.

2. We also value constituency building. Your constituents are your volunteers, clients, staff and board—everyone that comes in contact with your organization. They should all advocate for you.

3. I don’t want anyone to hire me if I can’t provide help. We’ve talked people out of hiring us if we can’t provide the support they need. I don’t want business for the sake of business.

4. Mission work—I understand the idea of a core group of folks setting up an organization when they identify the slice of world they want to improve. That’s how I see the world, too. I ask myself:

“What are the tangible things I can do everyday when I get up that improve the world?”

5. Another core principle is that I believe nonprofits should run themselves as businesses. I know this is controversial, but it doesn’t mean shareholders or corporate America. I’ve worked around many organizations that treat their employees like a quasi-dysfunctional family. I worry about that when it comes to boundary setting and losing efficacy. Running a nonprofit like a business means knowing you’re doing real work as professionals. It doesn’t have to be a corporate culture, but it’s about taking the organization’s mission seriously. You’re asking donors for money so your organization can provide a service and a solution. I actually see a shift toward this type of thinking in the sector, which is exciting for me.

Pollen: What’s your hope for Pollen’s future?

Dania Toscano Miwa: My hope is that Pollen continues to be an institution that brings together all of these different facets of the spaces we live in. I hope that Pollen will continue to be economically sustainable so they can continue to do this work. I feel like the models I’ve seen give me great hope for the organization’s future.