Executive credits Lodestar program with helping her gain confidence to assume leadership role

For Magdalena Verdugo, enrolling in the Nonprofit Executive Leadership Certificate program from the ASU Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation's Nonprofit Management Institute seemed like a natural next step on her career path, a way to build upon 30 years of accomplishments in the nonprofit community. 

At the time, she was the vice president of community schools at Chicanos Por la Causa, and she anticipated the certificate would provide a wide-ranging introduction to the proficiencies required of an executive director.

“The program exposed me to the different facets of running a nonprofit,” Verdugo said. “Everything from operations and fiscal program management to development and relationship building.”

She especially valued how the program spotlighted other leaders’ expertise and prioritized hands-on learning opportunities, including budgeting from an executive perspective. “When you’re doing program budgets, you’re only looking at your program, but when you’re leading an organization, you’re looking at the entire picture. That’s something that was new to me — to be able to look at things from the balcony perspective versus from the dance floor.”

Verdugo leveraged this new outlook to step into the role of CEO at YWCA Southern Arizona in January 2020, and to direct a swift response to the community’s needs at the beginning of the pandemic. This included bringing YWCA programs online, addressing disparities in technology access, and leveraging partnerships to provide women with rental and utility assistance, food boxes and more.

YWCA also became a grant-maker during this time; it was one of the first nonprofits selected by the city of Tucson to disperse the Somos Uno Resiliency Fund.

“We shifted to create a whole process for generating applications and promoting the program. By the end of December, we had rolled out a little over $9 million in relief funds to small businesses.”

She’s eager to expand YWCA Southern Arizona’s role as a housing, food security and child care resource. “We learned a lot about where we need to focus,” Verdugo said. Last year the organization launched an economic advancement center to help participants obtain livable-wage jobs. They are also prioritizing programs centered on women’s mental wellness.

She credits the ELC program with helping her cultivate the confidence to step into an executive role and shape a team that was willing to take risks with her as they were drawn into a community crisis.

“The fact that the program exposed me to these leadership components was a motivating factor to me in believing that I could.”